[PC] Diablo 3 - Deel 3

[Verwijderd]

Verwijderd schreef op donderdag 16 oktober 2008 @ 13:29:
If it isnt broke, don't fix it.

Stilstaan is achteruit gaan.

[psychoclown]

Update:

Diablo III To Use Warden, No DRM

Wired (Game|Life) scored an interview with Rob Pardo who confirmed Diablo III will feature the anti-hack software from World of Warcraft known as Warden, except it will be adapted specifically for Diablo III. Pardo mentioned other measures will be taken to prevent hacking by means of third-party software.

Another question pitched at the Vice-president of Game Design was if Diablo III would include DRM to prevent piracy. Wired specifically compared Spore’s silly DRM as a reference point. Pardo explained that Battle.net is their most effective DRM to prevent piracy of Blizzard games.

There are no plans to use Steam to distribute Blizzard games. Battle.net will continue to be Blizzard’s Steam-equivalent. Any new enhancements on Battle.net 2.0 will address certain plans and challenges for download distribution.

For lore fans who read the Diablo: The Sin War trilogy, it seems Pardo slipped acknowledgement that there are other worlds out there.Trag’Oul was halted from helping the inhabitants of Sanctuary by other guardians such as himself who were watching over other worlds. They warned Trag’Oul the fate of Sanctuary would affect or benefit the fate of other worlds. So if you thought this was a Heaven vs Hell conflict with Sanctuary in the middle of the sandwich, you are wrong. There are more worlds than meet the eye.

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New BlizzCon08 Art

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BlizzCon Press Conference with Jay Wilson

Q: Diablo 2 Guilds are basically needed in Diablo 3 in order to help you if you get killed, and to give you support when playing, what will be done in Diablo 3 to make guilds needed?
A: We have not looked into making guilds yet as the game is so early in development, but we have some great ideas for encouraging people to make guilds. We want to avoid doing things that can ruin things for non-guilded players. We would love to do a lot of things that play into guilds.

Q: What is the circle in the middle of the inventory screen?
A: It’s a function we call the Talisman. It might not have a function in this build, I can’t remember, but it’s all about character customisation. It’s a feature that is not set in stone, so it might change drastically, or even be removed.

Q: Will there be distinct class roles to fill, like in WoW?
A: We want a well balanced crew, where they are able to hold their own. Not really roles, but there will be good to have some of the special abilities around.

Q: Trading is a big thing in Diablo 2, how will you handle this in D3?
A: We haven’t decided this so much yet, people trade when they get items in games, but trading is definitely something that will have a heavy focus in Diablo 3.

Q: The Automated Stat Assignment, is this a permanent change?
A: Yes, it’s a definite change. The only purpose of the stat assignment in Diablo 2 was to break a character. You level up and realise you did things wrong and had to start over. We decided to remove it and add other customisation options. It works similar as to WoW.

Q: I have never played Diablo 2 online, and Diablo 3 is obviously focused on online play, is it a lot like an MMO?
A: There are some similarities, but it is not an MMO. You can play Diablo 3 besides an MMO, as it’s nothing like WoW, and you can log in to just play a few minutes, where WoW requires more dedication. We’re not worried at all that WoW and Diablo 3 will overlap.

Q: There is a lot of cheating in Diablo 2 trading, what will you do to prevent cheating in Diablo 3?
A: We have been working against cheating for many years in all our games, and there is no dev team on the planet with as much experience fighting cheating as Blizzard.

Q: In Diablo 2 your only way to respec would be to reroll. It got a bit better with the synergy bonuses on skills. What are you doing to improve the skill system?
A: One thing that we have changed is that these synergies is their own skills. A lot of new passive skills are added and the tree is more split up. You can move down your skill tree without wasting points. There is also more room for specialization to grow more individual. We also now have a respec system, so you don’t have to reroll to get other skills.

Q: Is four people multiplayer games set in stone?
A: It grows more and more set all the time. In Diablo 2, eight player games are very uncommon, and they wouldn’t be in the same party or the like and we have just found that it’s not as fun as with four people. We have the ability to set any number we want, but four seems to work out very well.

Q: Playing Diablo III you come to a place where it says “Checkpoint Reached”. Is this the same as a Waypoint?
A: This is more of an improvement on the old system, a checkpoint is a way to save progress. A difference is that you can’t teleport away from them, but you can jump TO any checkpoint. It’s easier, and in Diablo II you might run around for ages looking for the waypoint.

Q: When I played online with a friend, I had the problem that I did a lot of damage, but my friend got the killing blow and all the experience, is there a similar problem with Diablo 3?
A: It actually splits experience if you are in a party, so just join a party.

Q: Other companies use some of your gaming ideas in their games, and you obviously use others. Can you give me an example of an idea you found elsewhere and took to your development.
A: Achievement system. Not really a special developer, for all types of games has this, but a bit like X-Box Live.

Q: Will there be shrines in Diablo 3?
A: We have not decided about it. We have ideas for shrines. The things is that only two shrines were actually interesting to the player: Experience Shrines and Monster Shrines. Other shrines where like “nah”. We want to bring some system in with this functionality. This is where the combo exp bonus comes from. It’s not replacing shrines, but it’s playing in to it.

Q: Is there any caps on the Killing Spree combo?
A: Yes, there is a maximum combination combo. It’s related to your level but I don’t think anyone can actually get it. It has a theoretical limit, but you are not likely to reach it.

Q: I loved Deckard Cain, is the new one the same actor? He was a good point for comic relief in Diablo, will he still do that?
A: Of course it’s the same actor, Michael Gough, and we couldn’t dream of replacing him. Yes, it’s the same actor, but Cain has grown a bit more somber. 20 years have past, where he has been trying to warn people about this war, and he has gotten increasingly desperate.

Q: Will there be any roleplaying aspects to Diablo 3, like changing faces or skin colour?
A: In a previous build you could change face and skin colour, but the problem was that when you entered the game, you couldn’t really tell the difference. You spent perhaps 10 minutes picking your character, and you wouldn’t see anything of him. Another problem was armour would quickly hide it, and it also slowed down the game to go through that process, so we decided to remove it. It goes in line with the philosophy of making a fast game as well. you come in to the game, pick your class and go!

Q: Diablo 3 potions changed, wouldn’t this give potion an inflated value?
A: We work on PvP a lot. We talk a lot about it, but we haven’t decided on much yet. You can certainly use potions, you just can’t use them a lot. They don’t have a great impact on the game. In Diablo 2, potions actually ruined the game, as you efficiently get unlimited health and mana. The person that use up their potions first lose.

Q: Will there be a Stash in Diablo 3?
A: Yes! Bigger as well, and it grows in size.

Q: Will there be another Cain rap song?
A: I’m not sure, was it us that made it (Bashiok: Yes, it was actually us). Well, then there are definitely the possibility.

Q: Talking about guilds, will there be like a Guild Stash?
A: We haven’t started on that type of things yet. Battle.net isn’t done yet. We’ve had some small small talks about it, that’s it.

Q: Will you push Diablo 3 as an eSport game?
A: It will definitely have PvP, but look at how StarCraft II is designed with this in mind, it’s so important for StarCraft. We would have to make quite a few compromises with the game to make eSport a cornerstone of Diablo 3. We will make PvP bigger than in Diablo 2, but our goal is not to take it to the progamer level.

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[Dalyxia]

Verwijderd schreef op woensdag 15 oktober 2008 @ 16:59:
[...]


Laat ik een ander voorbeeld geven dan. Ik heb ooit 's in D2 HC een martyr gemaakt (paladin met max sacrifice/redemption en een hele berg gear met life leech). Hierbij stopte ik mn stat points voornamelijk in dexterity en strength, want je wilt vooral raak slaan en hard. Vitality was van ondergeschikt belang, omdat 1 klap toch wel 8% van je hp afslaat. Grote delen van het spel waren prima speelbaar met dat char, echter de delen met massa's undead absoluut niet, want life leech werkt niet op een skeleton. In dat opzich zou mijn avatar dus verkloot zijn, want undead's lopen er best wel veel en voor sommige delen was ik gewoon afhankelijk van anderen. Dat maakt het spelletje nog niet slecht voor mij, juist het tegenovergestelde.


eensch @ Blada btw.

had je Sanctuary Aura moeten hebben, bijvoorbeeld van azurewrath of Lawbringer Runeword, dan kan je wel leechen van undead...

anyway, D3 wordt fantastisch, gezeik met guilds en blablabla, d2 is ook eigenlijk een singleplayer slasher, geen MMO als WoW, waar het wel constant mee vergelijkt wordt, beetje appels met peren vergelijken vind ik dat

[psychoclown]

Dalyxia schreef op donderdag 16 oktober 2008 @ 20:19:
[...]


had je Sanctuary Aura moeten hebben, bijvoorbeeld van azurewrath of Lawbringer Runeword, dan kan je wel leechen van undead...

anyway, D3 wordt fantastisch, gezeik met guilds en blablabla, d2 is ook eigenlijk een singleplayer slasher, geen MMO als WoW, waar het wel constant mee vergelijkt wordt, beetje appels met peren vergelijken vind ik dat

Precies, wijze woorden van Dalyx!
Guildsfunctie lijkt me opzich wel grappig maar laat ze eerst maar een friendslist zonder max maken daarna zien we wel verder..

[psychoclown]

Update:

Blizzcon 2008: Diablo III Tidbits

1. The mini-map displayed yellow dots and you could see the name by placing your cursor over. Do only NPCs show up in the mini-map?

Bashiok: Enemies don’t display on the map. What they saw were NPC’s.

2. Are attribute requirements in items gone, or do weapons and armor still require x amount of strength and/or dexterity?

Bashiok: There are no planned attribute requirements on items.

3. Is the big overlay map option returning?

Bashiok: We have some various thoughts for map options, none have been decided on or announced at this point.

4. Now that we are traveling throughout Sanctuary, will each region have a map, and will we be able to zoom out and see the whole continent? (like we do Azeroth -> Eastern Kingdoms -> Elwynn Forest).

Bashiok: See above.

5. On the character window there are five resistances: frost, fire, lightning and poison. What’s the yellow icon representing?

Bashiok: I believe it goes frost, fire, lightning, poison, arcane. The yellow one being arcane… I think. They need tool tips obviously and possibly some palette changes to better represent the damage type.

That’s all for now, folks. On another note, for those who would like to see some cool stuff, Blizzard has updated the Diablo III website with details of one of the cities of Kehjistan: Caldeum, former trade capital of the world of Sanctuary. The page got a few updates such as the Caldeum guards animation at the top-right corner


In Diablo 2 there were mobs that was immune to certain elements, at least in nightmare and hell mode. When I first started playing LoD I made a sorceress and played singleplayer. When I reached nightmare I couldn’t continue anymore. I was pure frost and those mobs that was immune to cold ate me up. Does anyone know if they are going to change this now in D3?

Bashiok: We’re looking at most players having an average of six “active"skills, these are your magic missiles, frost nova, electrocute (to use a few wizard examples), and because you’re not just pumping up one single skill - and thus one single damage type, immunities become far less relevant. We’re not going to do away with resistances, they still add something, but they’re likely to be toned down a bit.

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[psychodude]

Dalyxia schreef op donderdag 16 oktober 2008 @ 20:19:
anyway, D3 wordt fantastisch, gezeik met guilds en blablabla, d2 is ook eigenlijk een singleplayer slasher, geen MMO als WoW, waar het wel constant mee vergelijkt wordt, beetje appels met peren vergelijken vind ik dat

Nog beter, het is niet eens warcraft . Toch grappig om te zien hoe mensen constant blijven vergelijken met warcraft, vraag me af of ze dat in de starcraft 2 communities ook doen, lol.

[Verwijderd]

SpoTs schreef op donderdag 16 oktober 2008 @ 15:57:
[...]


Signed! Wat mensen zeggen dat het spel slecht is als " let op! " de SPELER de verkeerde keuzes maakt.. is natuurlijk echt onzin. Het is juist leuk om te tweaken. En als de stats niet zo heel veel impact hebben dan is het juist beter om de statverdeling aan de persoon zelf toe te laten. Mensen die geen statverdeling willen die kunnen toch gewoon hetzelfde speccen ieder lvl dat ze gainen. Lekker de speler laten beslissen en niet het spel.

Op zich mee eens, maar geef dan ook de mogelijkheid om (tegen een bepaalde prijs) te respeccen. Anders kun je gewoon overnieuw beginnen, tsja leuk voor de hardcore rpg speler, maar zo werkt de game-industrie tegenwoordig niet meer

[Verwijderd]

Maar 4 spelers maximaal zou ik wel een beetje jammer vinden, daar zit je namelijk nogal snel aan met een stel vrienden

[Pheno79]

Het wachten is op de Diablo MMO

[psychodude]

Pheno79 schreef op vrijdag 17 oktober 2008 @ 17:47:
Het wachten is op de Diablo MMO

Denk dat je het diablo gevoel snel kwijt zal raken dan door gewoon hardware matige limitaties, wat diablo toch wel karakteriseert is dat het echt een slasher is. Gewoon tientallen mobs tegelijk aan diggelen hakken, als je met een klein aantal bent is dat nog enigzins in verhouding.

Zodra je met een raid formaat komt echter heb je een gigantische hoeveelheid mobs nodig om een beetje de zeflde feeling eraan te geven. Dat zal je niet gauw lukken zonder er grafisch redelijk op in te hakken, plus daarbovenop moet het bij een mmo vaak ook nog te spelen zijn op een groter aanbod aan systemen dus moet je het spel grafisch nog verder mishandelen kan je het bijna wel noemen wil het soepeltjes verlopen.

Ik denk zelf dat je voor diablo fijner zal spelen met 4 of mogelijk 8 man teams, enige wat je leuk zou kunnen doen is een geavanceerde lobby maken waarbij je gewoon in character wacht in een of andere city omgeving of whatever maar natuurlijk eigenlijk al overbodige luxe wat enkel voor het leuk zou zijn en show.

[Pheno79]

Ah, over een paar jaar.....het duurde al 7 jaar voor de aankondiging van Diablo2 LoD->3. tegen die tijd, misschien. Maar goed, eerst D3 natuurlijk. En de expansie daarop.

[psychoclown]

Update:

New BlizzCon08 Art

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[Bibosjakie]

Het is natuurlijk koffiedik kijken, maar iemand een idee wanneer Diablo 3 te koop zal zijn.
Ik ga er zelf vanuit (Blizzard een beetje kennende) dat anderhalf jaar na de aankondiging wel reëel is. Dus ik verwacht eind 2009/ uiterlijk begin 2010.
Iemand een ander idee?

[daves2hd]

Bibosjakie schreef op zaterdag 18 oktober 2008 @ 12:29:
Het is natuurlijk koffiedik kijken, maar iemand een idee wanneer Diablo 3 te koop zal zijn.
Ik ga er zelf vanuit (Blizzard een beetje kennende) dat anderhalf jaar na de aankondiging wel reëel is. Dus ik verwacht eind 2009/ uiterlijk begin 2010.
Iemand een ander idee?

ja, it's done when it's done. Nutteloze speculatie om verder mee te gaan, hebben we begin deel 1 van het topic al genoeg gedaan denk ik zo

Hm items zonder stat restricties, wat dan wel levels en class? Zou vet zijn als je ook bepaalde titels in elke class hebt die je krijgt op basis van de skills die je kiest (net als je in dungeon siege titels krijgt op basis van welke wapen soort(en) je traint). Op deze manier kun je met equipment veel meer specials gericht op bepaalde speelstijlen maken. Nu zullen ze om iets niet te sterk te maken dingen moeten compenseren misschien.

[Kishi]

@daves2hd

Als je op level gaat restricten, doe je dat eigenlijk ook vanuit stat-point opzicht. Omdat je strength per level toeneemt met een constante waarde, kan Blizzard anticiperen ('op level x kan de Barbarian dit wapen dragen, dat komt overeen op y strength').

Je krijgt dan onpraktische gevolgen als: Wizard / Witchdoctor wil datzelfde wapen ook dragen, maar deze kan dat pas op level z. Je zou dan voor elk item maar liefst 5 regels restricties in de tooltip moeten gooien. De oplossing ligt dus ook deels in class-restriction.

Hierin heb je dus gelijk.

Over die titels die je krijgt op basis van skills ... bedoel je zoiets als het Titan Quest systeem?

[Pedr0]

http://www.joystiq.com/ph...th-hands-on/1093568/full/

[psychoclown]

Pedr0 schreef op zondag 19 oktober 2008 @ 12:55:
http://www.joystiq.com/ph...th-hands-on/1093568/full/

Wilde ik vanochtend al posten maar moest eerst thumbnails maken en bij eentje lukte dat niet dus die komt later Kun je wel mooi aantal inventory shots zien.

[Verwijderd]

Pedr0 schreef op zondag 19 oktober 2008 @ 12:55:
http://www.joystiq.com/ph...th-hands-on/1093568/full/

Nice, we krijgen de average damage per seconde te zien. Wat me verder opvalt is dat er zes characters staan bij het selectie scherm. Ik dacht dat er al zekerheid was omtrent het aantal characters, nl 5?

En toch ook wat Titan quest invloeden zoals direct een damage vergelijking als je een nieuw wapen wilt selecteren. Erg handig.

[psychoclown]

Verwijderd schreef op zondag 19 oktober 2008 @ 15:30:
[...]


Nice, we krijgen de average damage per seconde te zien. Wat me verder opvalt is dat er zes characters staan bij het selectie scherm. Ik dacht dat er al zekerheid was omtrent het aantal characters, nl 5?

En toch ook wat Titan quest invloeden zoals direct een damage vergelijking als je een nieuw wapen wilt selecteren. Erg handig.

Best of both worlds
Als je goed kijkt zie dat er van elke class 2 staan (female/male).

[psychoclown]

Update:

BlizzCon D3 Inventory Images

Let op dit maal geen link naar het werkelijke formaat anders denkt GoT dat er popups komen..

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BlizzCon New Character Art

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[Viper2k1]

Laat maar komen die game! Ben er helemaal klaar voor!

[Verwijderd]

Verwijderd schreef op zondag 19 oktober 2008 @ 15:30:
[...]
Wat me verder opvalt is dat er zes characters staan bij het selectie scherm. Ik dacht dat er al zekerheid was omtrent het aantal characters, nl 5?

Je kan dit keer kiezen tussen een mannelijk of vrouwelijke hero, dus er zijn 3 classes bekent, 3x2 is? Juist 6....
En wanneer alle classes bekent zijn hoeveel heb je er dan? ;-)

[Pedr0]

Wanneer is er een volgend evenement waar er eventueel meer nieuws omtrent deze game naar buiten (kan) komen?

[Verwijderd]

Ik vind die inventory maar niets kwa stijl

[Angeloonie]

Verwijderd schreef op maandag 20 oktober 2008 @ 12:31:
Ik vind die inventory maar niets kwa stijl

Ik wel

Eindelijk eens meer dan 5 Long Bows mee kunnen nemen

[psychoclown]

Verwijderd schreef op maandag 20 oktober 2008 @ 12:31:
Ik vind die inventory maar niets kwa stijl

Het zal even wennen zijn maarja zo zijn er wel meer veranderingen dat je even denkt van 'wow, totaal anders dan D2'. Daarvoor is het nou eenmaal D3

Changelog

Updates: • 28-06-'08 - Opening tweede deel Diablo3 topic nog aan flinke updates onderhevig. • 29-06-'08 - Sectie Content toegevoegd. • 30-06-'08 - Sectie Algemene Info uitgebreid. Plaatje van Witch doctor gefixed. Sectie Aanvullende Info toegevoegd. Topic over 2 posts verdeeld. • 31-06-'08 - TS Code opgeschoond. • 03-07-'08 - Aanvullende Info sectie vernieuwd/updated. Character Classes aangevuld. • 25-07-'08 - Wallpaper toegevoegd aan de Content Sectie. • 04-08-'08 - Fixed Skills links gelukkig door iemand op photobucket gezet. Skills UI pic niet kunnen redden. • 15-08-'08 - Nieuwe Wallpaper toegevoegd. • 05-09-'08 - Diablo Timeline aan de links sectie toegevoegd andere updates volgen later. News Updates Sectie toegevoegd, alle updates bij elkaar! • 20-10-'08 - Character: Wizard toegevoegd + Skilltrees ipv skills.

[Pheno79]

Verwijderd schreef op maandag 20 oktober 2008 @ 12:31:
Ik vind die inventory maar niets kwa stijl

Ik vind het mulen dan weer geen *** aan, dus liever zo dan weer met een apart mule account gaan leuren

[pstalman]

dus weer items zonder requirements... tis net als D2 in het begin.
We wachten af

[psychoclown]

Update:

Barbarian Game Play and Skill Tree Discussion

BlizzCon Demo Impressions

Like most people at BlizzCon (at least everyone playing D3 on one of the in the press room), my first character was a Wizard. I wanted to see the newest of the new, and I did, and there will be a report on that character later this week. Today though, it’s all about the Barbarian. I’m not going to go into detail over the exact functions and my first impressions of the BlizzCon build, since MD did such a thorough job of that in his gameplay report, and since everyone reading this has seen the D3 gameplay movies and played D2. Not to reduce it too much, but D3 "feels" like D2, with a few tweaks. If you are familiar with D2 (or D1, or any other isometric view RPG) the controls, movement, speed, mouse fluidity, etc, all feel very natural. I was immediately comfortable at the controls, with only the altered hotkeys and skill interface giving me any pause.

I tried out the D3 version of our grunting, illiterate, smash-happy friend on Friday morning, some time after my opening salvo with the Wizard, and I found the experience much as I’d anticipated. That’s not an entirely good thing, since while I played a number of types of Barbarians in D2, (and most enjoyed horking Magic Finders) I tended to find the Clvl 1-30 process somewhat tedious, and only began to enjoy my Barbs when they had WW, or at least Frenzy, and enough good equipment to rock and roll. I think I’ll feel more or less the same about the D3 Barbarian. He’s (she’s) got a wider variety of skills, and the lower level ones look a lot more fun than the early ones in D2. But they’re still basically single strike, melee attacks, and those don’t exactly fill me with"woot.

Let me stress that I’m not advocating a major character remodel. It’s perfectly fair to reserve the powerful, multi-target, skills like Whirlwind, Seismic Slam, and Furious Charge for higher levels. The Barbarian would be overpowered and poorly-designed if he could unleash mega-death type skills like those right off the bat. I just don’t find slow, melee-fighting much fun. I didn’t especially care for the D1 Warrior, and in D2 I could never play a Werebear Druid or Assassin. Your mileage (kilometerage) may, and probably will, vary.

That said, the D3 Barb wasn’t horrible, or boring. I enjoyed playing her, and will certainly play a Barbarian in the final game. It won’t be my first character, but it won’t be my last either. For what it is, the D3 Barbarian is very well-executed. The animations are great, the sound effects are massive (buy a new woofer to prepare for D3; the bass is worth it), the skill graphics are nice, the monsters are varied and enjoyable to slaughter. Even the dialogue, as heard through the one lengthy NPC conversation in the Blizzcon build, was interesting and very character-appropriate.

I listened to the full dialogue, with Captain Rumford in the tiny Tristram encampment new characters started out in, but I was bouncing on my toes during it, since I wanted to get out and kill some zombies. And soon enough… I did.

Blizzcon Demo Gameplay

The Blizzcon demo was fun, but it wasn’t exactly challenging. At least not with the Barbarian or the Witch Doctor. The Barb was strong enough to just bash (figuratively and literally) his (or her) way through the monsters, and the Witch Doctor had several spells that were quite effective when used while standing behind the tanking Mongrels
The Wizard was more of a challenge, but that’s for another report.

Before anyone starts worrying about D3 being too "carebear," remember one thing. The Blizzcon demo was supposed to be easy:

This was the first hands-on for anyone outside of Blizzard, and the D3 Team knew that lots of the fans and media at BlizzCon would be eager to play, despite not having touched D2 in years. I heard many people in the press room laugh as they said something like, "I keep wanting to scroll the camera around." Predictable comments from WoW players slipping back into the isometric saddle for the first time in half a decade, and the sort of thing the D3 Team would have planned on. Also, the play sessions only lasted about 15 minutes on the slow floor, and the devs didn’t want new players running out and dying as they struggled with the controls. So characters started off at level 6 in the Blizzcon build, with a variety of skills already enabled. I wouldn’t be surprised if the team had also turned down the difficulty and/or turned up the character stats/hps as well.

As a result, "new" characters in the BlizzCon build were essentially starting off the game at level 6, and while that was an advantage, it wasn’t enough to turn the game into a boring, god-mode-esque slaughter. Still, I only had to retreat from combat a couple of times with my Barbarian, both times when I found a random boss monster who had nasty ranged attacks, skeleton archer wingmen, and a lot of melee skeletons and zombies to tank. On those occasions I just ran back down the hallway a bit, stringing out the melee attackers and getting out of range of the archers and the bosses’ spells. (The encounter was somewhat reminiscent of fighting Radament, in the Act 2 Sewers, if Radament had better magic and was slower to resurrect dead skeletons.) It was easy to slaughter the skeleton minions once they were spread out, and with them gone I rushed back down the hallway and finished off the boss.

Leoric the Skeleton King, the boss whose defeat ended the Blizzcon demo, was actually easier than some of the random bosses. I was level 9 by the time I reached his throne room, and with some decent armor on, I could just stand there and whack away at him, ignoring his summoned minions and his own mighty maul attack. I ended up running around his level a bit just to extend the experience, but my Barbarian was never in serious risk of death in the BlizzCon demo, so I wouldn’t have been able to test out the Barb’s controversial resurrection skill, even if it had been enabled for use at Blizzcon.

Barbarian Skills and Controls

The biggest change to the Barbarian’s interface and controls comes from Fury. See the Fury page in the Diablo Wiki for full details. In brief, Fury is the new mana, but only (so far) for Barbarians. Fury replaces mana, but unlike the old blue bulb, it does not fill up when not in use. Barbarians have zero Fury to start with, and only build it up during combat, when they land successful strikes to their enemies. As soon as the Barb is not fighting, the Fury starts to drain away, and it seeps out quite quickly. I frequently filled my Fury bulb completely during a fight, paused to pick up an item or two, then ran to find more monsters, and arrived just as my Fury went down to nothing.

My Barbarian had about 100 Fury at level 7 or 8, and while I didn’t get to experiment with it that persistently, I could see enough to like the concept. The Barbarian is designed to be a melee battling character. He gets all sorts of bonuses while in combat, and many of his skills only trigger when he scores critical hits. (Conveniently, plenty of other skills boost his critical hit chances.) With that design goal, the fact that he has to fight to build up Fury, and has to expend Fury to use most of his skills, is only natural. It looks like an expert Barbarian player will be most at home when surrounded by enemies, and will have to learn to cycle quickly through a variety of attack skills and war cry-style buffs to stay alive and able to smash his enemies.

The only big Fury expenditure available in the Blizzcon build was Battle Rage, a wary cry that boosted the Barbarian’s damage by 100%, increased critical damage by 30%, and lasted for 15 seconds. (With one point in it, which was all the BlizzCon build allowed to active skills.) That was half, or more, of my total Rage, but I never minded spending it. The combat improvements were substantial, and since Rage faded away so quickly, I had a constant feeling of "use it or lose it." Whenever I finished a battle with a full Rage bulb, I tried to remember to cast this war cry, since the precious juice would all be gone by the time I got to the next battle anyway.

As for the skills available, I mentioned earlier that the Barbarian played like a D2 Barbarian with better graphics. The starter skills were quite similar as well, at least superficially. The new characters were level 6, and already had some skills placed, to make things quicker and easier for the fans. Therefore all Barbarians started out with a point or two in two passives in each of the three skill trees. The skills were all Tier 1 passives, such as Power of the Battlemaster, Iron Skin, Power of the Berserker, Heightened Senses, and Power of the Juggernaut. This gave the characters some survivability, so the new players wouldn’t die immediately, or feel like they didn’t have any skills to play with In addition to those passives, there were some active skills with a point in them, and others that could be enabled as soon as your character leveled up a time or two.

I got to use or watch other players use Frenzy, Bash, Cleave, Battle Rage, and Hammer of the Ancients. All of them were fun and visceral and had great sound effects, but using them wasn’t much different than seeing them in a gameplay movie. They’re all familiar to anyone who played a Barbarian in D2, in function and form if not name. They’re mostly melee attacks, and whether they hit a single target or two, hit a little faster or knock back the monster, or swing a magical hammer overhead for huge damage, they all involve standing toe to toe and clicking away until the zombies or skeletons are dead Which they were, usually after just 2 or 3 hits.

The skills did make a difference. I used Bash, Frenzy, and Cleave constantly, and noticed considerable differences between them. Damage shows up on the screen in D3, so every time I’d whack a skeleton or zombie I’d see a little number showing that I’d just done 22, or 34, or 51 damage. It varied, of course, and I was constantly plugging in the different weapons I found, until I eventually settled on a two-handed sword . It did by far the most damage of anything my Barb found at Blizzcon, and that big weapon was more useful than dual wielding, or using a sword/shield, at least against the slow swinging, low-damage early game enemies.

The sword showed me something new, too—D3 Barbarians can not hold a two-handed sword in one hand. Only one-handed weapons could be dual-wielded or used with a shield. That change aside, dual-wielding is still a big part of the game. I kept doing it accidentally, as I tried to hold a single one-handed sword, and found myself automatically equipping every other one-handed weapon I tried to pick up. In the early stages of the game dual wielding isn’t much more damaging than simply using one one-handed weapon, since the hit rate isn’t that much faster with two weapons than with one. That will change later, of course, since there are a variety of skills to boost the Barbarian’s dual weapon abilities scattered through the three skill trees.

Skill Trees and Signature Skills

Reviewing the Barbarian skill trees, which are now online and covered in great detail (18+ skills in each) in the wiki, it’s possible to gain more insight into the D3 Team’s overall design goal.

• Battlemaster Tree
• Berserker Tree
• Juggernaut Tree

Jay Wilson (and others) have repeatedly stated that they intend players to (regularly) use 6-8 active skills on their character in D3. These active skills will be supported by numerous passive skills, and the game and interface are designed to compliment each other. There are 6 belt spots (which can hold skills or potions to drink, along with the right mouse button, left mouse button, and tab. This gives a character up to 9 buttons that will provide instant access to a skill or spell. Likely players will want to store some potions or other items in some slots of their belt, but that seems to be a designed trade off.

Most of the skills in each tree are passive. As the trees are now formed (they are very subject to change), each tier has 4 or 5 skills, of which just 1 or 2 are active. The Barbarian’s active skills are mostly melee attacks and war cry-like spells that serve to boost the his abilities or to cripple his enemies. These active skills are all enhanced in various ways by the passives. Low level skills are designed to be used throughout the game, though how they will scale up to remain viable isn’t yet known. Long term, it looks like most Barbarians will pick one tree to spend most of their points in, and use 4 or 5 active skills from that tree, while supporting them with a variety of passives. Especially useful passives from the lower tiers of other trees will probably be mixed in as well. Active skills from other trees seem like they’ll be less useful, since there will not be enough skill points to load up the passives required to enhance those borrowed active skills.

It’s also interesting to compare our early skill lists to the signature skills the D3 team has demonstrated at various panels at the WWI and BlizzCon. Surprisingly, virtually every one of the Barbarian’s active skills has profiled by Jay Wilson or some other D3 Team member, though this becomes less surprising when you consider how few active skills there are on the trees. There’s no guarantee things will remain this way through to the final game, of course. The D3 Team’s goal seems to be to develop 10 or 12 top quality active skills for each character, spread them throughout the 3 skill trees, and let players pick and choose. The team could think up more skills, but as they’ve stressed in the Signature Skills demonstrations, they want the D3 characters to have powerful, impressive, memorable abilities. And they want to make all of these abilities useful long term, whether though scaling with Clvl, multiple skill points in the active skill, or tweaking of the bonuses provided by the passives.

Skills of Note

Read over all the skills yourself, when you’ve got the time. They’re listed with their names, locations, and some commentary on each. That’s the best way to get a feel for the character design. That said, here are a few of the more interesting ones.

Attack Rating: One thing that’s glaring, in its omission, is Attack Rating. While there are at least 20 Barbarian skills that boost damage, there are zero that boost to/hit.. Damage is boosted by many skills, and in many ways. There are straight damage increases, +damage to all the skills in a tree, +damage to one or two particular skills, +critical hit damage and frequency, and much more. Yet nothing boosts Attack Rating, or to/hit, or whatever they’re calling it in D3. It’s not just Barbarian skills either—there are no values listed for to/hit in the character window. Perhaps AR is a hidden stat now, or based on Clvl, or boosted solely by equipment, or any/all of the above, but it hasn’t been implemented into the game yet, or wasn’t for the BlizzCon build. If anyone bumps into Jay Wilson, feel free to bring this one up.

Shield Specialization: Not a very impressive skill, but the description hints at at major change from D2. This skill is said to increase the % chance to block, and the amount of damage blocked. So shields in D3 don’t block 100% of the damage anymore? Just some amount of it, an amount that increases with shield type and the appropriate shield skill? This remains to be confirmed.

Deliberate Defense: This skill boosts the Barbarian’s armor when he lands a successful critical hit. D3 barbarians are truly designed to thrive in combat. Hit enemies with devastating critical strikes, and raise your defense in the process.

Death Proof: Probably the most controversial skill the Barbarian possesses; this one works as a sort of auto-resurrection. The changes this would bring to the balance of character power in Hardcore is hard to underestimate. Here’s the description, as best it could be read from the skill hover. "The barbarian overcomes death. Upon receiving fatal damage the Barbarian is kept alive and gains back 30% of his maximum hit points. The effect can not occur more than every 300 seconds."

Stubborn: This one lets the Barbarian resist "all slowing effects." So there will be a lot of such effects, we can assume?

Revenge: This skill is an offensive war cry (Actually a ground stomp, but same thing.) that has a % chance to hit every monster in range with 100% of the Barbarian’s weapon damage, as well as granting him 2% of his maximum health for everything hit. Better than life leech? Best used in a mob?

Bad Temper: Reduces Fury drain by 3% at level one. There’s no telling if players will find this worth investing in, or if it’ll just be easier to get Fury drain reduced on equipment, or simply to ignore the property and concentrate on better techniques to harvest more fury as soon as possible as a new battle begins.

Enrage: A sort of companion to Bad Temper, Enrage is a buff that increases the Fury gained for a short time, but also increases the damage the Barbarian takes during that same time.

Savage: Another Fury-booster from the Berserker Tree; this one increases all Fury generation for X seconds after scoring a critical hit. And yes, there are passives that increase the odds of landing a critical.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the skill trees we now see are far from complete. Even if there are no skills added or removed from now until the game is released (a laughably unlikely scenario), the levels and requirements and stats of all the skills we now see are likely to be tweaked and modified all throughout the design process. There were only Tier 1, 5, 10, and 15 skills at Blizzcon, and only Tier 1 and 5 were usable, but clearly characters won’t access the last skills in the game at level 15, or even 20 (there was another tier in the skill trees, but with no skills listed on it). More skills will be added, existing skills will be moved up or down the tree, and many, many changes will be made, both to prime functions and to minor figures.

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New Environmental Art

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[Pheno79]

Death Proof: Probably the most controversial skill the Barbarian possesses; this one works as a sort of auto-resurrection. The changes this would bring to the balance of character power in Hardcore is hard to underestimate. Here’s the description, as best it could be read from the skill hover. "The barbarian overcomes death. Upon receiving fatal damage the Barbarian is kept alive and gains back 30% of his maximum hit points. The effect can not occur more than every 300 seconds."

Oh jee, daar gaat hardcore. Deze skill mag van mij echt weg. Hardcore = dood=einde verhaal. Niet zo'n flauw dingetje die zorgt dat je tijden shet spelen (en overleven) na 5 minuten weer een overlevingskans hebt.

[OneUp]

En als ze hem dan toevoegen lijkt het me eerder iets voor een wizard of witchdoctor aangezien die zogenaamd dan magie kunnen toepassen om te overleven...

[DarthDavy]

Idd, ik vind dit ook niet echt de skill voor een barbarian. Als zo'n blok beton dood gaat, dan is ie ook gewoon dood. Als er dan zoiets als een automatische resurrectie moet bestaan, dan denk ik dat de witchdoctor daar op dit ogenblik misschien aanspraak kan op maken.

Ze mogen de barbarian wel een panic-button geven in de vorm van bvb 30% extra HP voor 10 seconden en die skill maar om de 300 seconden laten gebruiken. Zo'n panic-button kan ook het verschil tussen leven en dood bepalen.

[Verwijderd]

Pheno79 schreef op dinsdag 21 oktober 2008 @ 13:13:
[...]
Oh jee, daar gaat hardcore. Deze skill mag van mij echt weg. Hardcore = dood=einde verhaal. Niet zo'n flauw dingetje die zorgt dat je tijden shet spelen (en overleven) na 5 minuten weer een overlevingskans hebt.

Waarom zijn mensen toch zo snel om kritiek uit te delen... je hebt het spel nog niet gespeeld... wacht nou eens af!

[OneUp]

DarthDavy schreef op dinsdag 21 oktober 2008 @ 13:24:
Idd, ik vind dit ook niet echt de skill voor een barbarian. Als zo'n blok beton dood gaat, dan is ie ook gewoon dood. Als er dan zoiets als een automatische resurrectie moet bestaan, dan denk ik dat de witchdoctor daar op dit ogenblik misschien aanspraak kan op maken.

De witchdoctor idd, die met wat zwarte magie een reïncarnatie uitvoert in zijn eigen lichaam

[Pheno79]

Verwijderd schreef op dinsdag 21 oktober 2008 @ 13:30:
[...]
Waarom zijn mensen toch zo snel om kritiek uit te delen... je hebt het spel nog niet gespeeld... wacht nou eens af!

Ik lees de beschrijving van de skill, iedereen weet wat hardcore is. Dat heeft niets met afwachten te maken. Afwachten doe je met kritiek over kleuren, de veranderde inventory of weet ik wat cosmetisch. Dit is duidelijk: je hebt een tweede kans op hardcore. Dat maakt het een stuk minder hardcore

En dan maakt het me niet uit of de witchdoctor, barb of wie dan ook die skill heeft, ik vind het bij deze jammer dat ze het uberhaupt overwegen. Hardcore moet spannend zijn: wetend dat een foutje je een stuk werk afpakt. Als je dat niet wilt ga je maar softcore spelen, maar laat hardcore aub niet verslappen op deze manier.

[ Voor 23% gewijzigd door Pheno79 op 21-10-2008 13:51 ]

[Lointje]

Pheno79 schreef op dinsdag 21 oktober 2008 @ 13:13:
[...]

Oh jee, daar gaat hardcore. Deze skill mag van mij echt weg. Hardcore = dood=einde verhaal. Niet zo'n flauw dingetje die zorgt dat je tijden shet spelen (en overleven) na 5 minuten weer een overlevingskans hebt.

Dat valt wel mee hoor denk ik. Het is inderdaad beetje vreemde skill voor een barb, maar bedenk wel: Het feit dat hij gaat sterven is omdat hij te veel monsters rond zich heeft. 30% van je HP is dan zo weer weg als je niet vlug de helft neerhaalt of begint te lopen naar een veilige plaats.

Het is wel zo dat de hardcore spelers dit gaan gebruiken, en dan 5 minuten wachten in een town alvorens ze weer buiten komen.

Langs de andere kant, zo kan je eindelijk eens een pauze nemen om te gaan eten of naar de wc te gaan ^^

[Verwijderd]

Pheno79 schreef op dinsdag 21 oktober 2008 @ 13:49:
[...]

Ik lees de beschrijving van de skill, iedereen weet wat hardcore is. Dat heeft niets met afwachten te maken. Afwachten doe je met kritiek over kleuren, de veranderde inventory of weet ik wat cosmetisch. Dit is duidelijk: je hebt een tweede kans op hardcore. Dat maakt het een stuk minder hardcore

En dan maakt het me niet uit of de witchdoctor, barb of wie dan ook die skill heeft, ik vind het bij deze jammer dat ze het uberhaupt overwegen. Hardcore moet spannend zijn: wetend dat een foutje je een stuk werk afpakt. Als je dat niet wilt ga je maar softcore spelen, maar laat hardcore aub niet verslappen op deze manier.

Of dat lag je gewoon doodmaakt . De reden dat ik dus geen hardcore speel.

[Dakreal]

Lointje schreef op dinsdag 21 oktober 2008 @ 14:04:
[...]


Dat valt wel mee hoor denk ik. Het is inderdaad beetje vreemde skill voor een barb, maar bedenk wel: Het feit dat hij gaat sterven is omdat hij te veel monsters rond zich heeft. 30% van je HP is dan zo weer weg als je niet vlug de helft neerhaalt of begint te lopen naar een veilige plaats.

Het is wel zo dat de hardcore spelers dit gaan gebruiken, en dan 5 minuten wachten in een town alvorens ze weer buiten komen.

Langs de andere kant, zo kan je eindelijk eens een pauze nemen om te gaan eten of naar de wc te gaan ^^

En toen liep je timer af " You are able to ressurect, but since you waited too long you bled to death "

[Pheno79]

Lointje schreef op dinsdag 21 oktober 2008 @ 14:04:
[...]


Dat valt wel mee hoor denk ik. Het is inderdaad beetje vreemde skill voor een barb, maar bedenk wel: Het feit dat hij gaat sterven is omdat hij te veel monsters rond zich heeft. 30% van je HP is dan zo weer weg als je niet vlug de helft neerhaalt of begint te lopen naar een veilige plaats.

Het is wel zo dat de hardcore spelers dit gaan gebruiken, en dan 5 minuten wachten in een town alvorens ze weer buiten komen.

Langs de andere kant, zo kan je eindelijk eens een pauze nemen om te gaan eten of naar de wc te gaan ^^

Zoals gezegd, ik val niet over het feit dat de barb dit heeft, wel dat er nu 5 minuten net buiten een safe spot wordt "gecamped". Voor een hack & slash spel nogal geestdodend. Die pauzes neem ik wel door een tp te zetten op een goed moment

Verwijderd schreef op dinsdag 21 oktober 2008 @ 14:08:
[...]

Of dat lag je gewoon doodmaakt . De reden dat ik dus geen hardcore speel.

Dat is onzin. En ik heb toch in de periode met de public dupe gespeeld, waar pingtijden van 5 sec (en dat was dan nog snel ) lag standaard waren. Ik ben 1x doodgegaan omdat UPC opeens mijn verbinding er uit knalde. Leuk in de chaos hell

Hardcore is gewoonweg anders spelen. En ik hoop van harte dat ze dat weer terug er in stoppen.
Rot als je dood gaat, maar de kick om te overleven is dat echt meer dan waard. Softcore is doodgaan, naar je body gaan (of even je body in town ophalen in een new game) en weer verder roekeloos spelen, het kost je hoogstens wat exp en gold, die je toch weer aardig snel erbij hebt

Elke softcore speler begint altijd over "ik speel niet, want er is lag", maar ik en mijn mede D2 hardcoregenoten hebben dat nooit als iets onoverkomelijks kunnen zien. Maar deze discussie mag verder in het D2 topic

Bliz heeft in een Q&A al aangegeven dat ze geen beren op de weg zien om hardcore er weer in te doen, dus mits er geen resurrection spells gaan komen ben ik helemaal happy.

[Verwijderd]

Pheno79 schreef op dinsdag 21 oktober 2008 @ 15:00:

Bliz heeft in een Q&A al aangegeven dat ze geen beren op de weg zien om hardcore er weer in te doen, dus mits er geen resurrection spells gaan komen ben ik helemaal happy.

Hardcore komt er zeker in. Het is ook gewoon erg makkelijk om te implementeren, dus er is weinig reden om het niet te doen. (zie eerdere Blizzard quote)

[Dakreal]

Verwijderd schreef op dinsdag 21 oktober 2008 @ 22:05:
[...]


Hardcore komt er zeker in. Het is ook gewoon erg makkelijk om te implementeren, dus er is weinig reden om het niet te doen. (zie eerdere Blizzard quote)

HC = leuk om te avonturieren, SC is leuk voor pvp.

Ik heb het zelf beide gespeelt, en zowel op hc als sc ( duh ) meerdere lvl 99's gehaald.
HC is leuk als je het met een bekende groep speelt omdat je weet wat je aan elkaar hebt.
SC is gewoon brainloos knallen. Beide erg leuk, heb zelf trouwens nooit lag gehad op hc. Wel is een crashje waardoor ik weer een char kwijt was

[Pedr0]

Diablo III Fan site kit is released.... Misschien zit er wat tussen voor de TS?

[psychoclown]

Pedr0 schreef op vrijdag 24 oktober 2008 @ 13:37:
Diablo III Fan site kit is released.... Misschien zit er wat tussen voor de TS?

Al vanochtend bekeken maar niet echt heel bruikbaars om lekker te gebruiken. Wellicht dat ik wel de 'char-renders' ga gebruiken maar vind die artwork even mooi zo niet mooier.
In ieder geval bedankt voor de heads up.

[psychodude]

SpoTs schreef op woensdag 22 oktober 2008 @ 09:37:
[...]


HC = leuk om te avonturieren, SC is leuk voor pvp.

Ik heb het zelf beide gespeelt, en zowel op hc als sc ( duh ) meerdere lvl 99's gehaald.
HC is leuk als je het met een bekende groep speelt omdat je weet wat je aan elkaar hebt.
SC is gewoon brainloos knallen. Beide erg leuk, heb zelf trouwens nooit lag gehad op hc. Wel is een crashje waardoor ik weer een char kwijt was

Crashje, even weer eens niet opletten, internet van chello welk er toendertijd nogal regelmatig uitknalde . Tja, ben toch wel aardig wat chars kwijt geraakt op die fiets . Maar vond hc vaak toch wel het leukst ook idd met een bekende groep, maakt het allemaal wat spannender ipv zonder zorgen te kunnen doen w/e je wilt.

Maarja, zeker deze dagen zal lag en internet eruit knallen niet meer van betekenis zijn. Het zo'n beetje wekelijkse tafereel van verscheidene uren downtime is toch al wel een aantal jaar achter de rug bij chello dus zal zelf zeker wel iets in hc mode zien, nu maar hopen dat het er natuurlijk weer is.

[psychoclown]

psychodude schreef op vrijdag 24 oktober 2008 @ 17:14:
[...]

Crashje, even weer eens niet opletten, internet van chello welk er toendertijd nogal regelmatig uitknalde . Tja, ben toch wel aardig wat chars kwijt geraakt op die fiets . Maar vond hc vaak toch wel het leukst ook idd met een bekende groep, maakt het allemaal wat spannender ipv zonder zorgen te kunnen doen w/e je wilt.

Maarja, zeker deze dagen zal lag en internet eruit knallen niet meer van betekenis zijn. Het zo'n beetje wekelijkse tafereel van verscheidene uren downtime is toch al wel een aantal jaar achter de rug bij chello dus zal zelf zeker wel iets in hc mode zien, nu maar hopen dat het er natuurlijk weer is.

Nu zal het bij D3 niet zo snel voor komen lijkt me maar bnet is tegenwoordig anders de grootste boosdoener van lag hoor. Al die bots, dupers en torches icm de weerstanden tegen dupers zorgen voor aardig wat lag.

Nu dat ik het er toch over hebt, ben benieuwd wanneer het bnet team iets laat horen over bnet 2.0. De verschillende mogelijkheden en hoe de lobby van D3 eruit gaat zien zou ik graag iets over horen.

[Verwijderd]

psychoclown schreef op maandag 20 oktober 2008 @ 12:57:
[...]

Het zal even wennen zijn maarja zo zijn er wel meer veranderingen dat je even denkt van 'wow, totaal anders dan D2'. Daarvoor is het nou eenmaal D3

De looks van de game zelf vind ik wel tof, maar de artstyle van de inventory is te ....cartoony voor mij. Ik hou van simpel en strak

[psychoclown]

Verwijderd schreef op zaterdag 25 oktober 2008 @ 20:19:
[...]

De looks van de game zelf vind ik wel tof, maar de artstyle van de inventory is te ....cartoony voor mij. Ik hou van simpel en strak

Ja ben ik het wel mee eens hoor en liever zie ik ook de inventory zoals in D2 dan moet je nog enigzins je hersens gebruiken bij het oppakken van spul icm charms etc.
Nu is het oppakken totdat je vol zit want de charms kwamen weer apart van de inventory te zitten als ik het goed heb. Zal vast wel goed werken en wellicht nog veranderen maar toch even wennen voor sommige dingen.

[scorpie]

Rumor has it dat de 4e class de Warlock wordt:

http://diablo3x.com/new-rumor-warlock-4th-diablo-3-class

[Verwijderd]

Ik hoop zo dat D3 ook zo snel op de mac uitkomt als D2. Of misschien wel dat je met de windows cd's ook op je mac kan installeren.
Ik kan gewoon niet wachten op deze game. D2 staat al weer een maandje op me mac en begin weer zwaar verslaafd teraken

[Viper2k1]

Verwijderd schreef op zaterdag 25 oktober 2008 @ 20:19:
[...]

De looks van de game zelf vind ik wel tof, maar de artstyle van de inventory is te ....cartoony voor mij. Ik hou van simpel en strak

Is wel grappig dat Bill Roper (een van de Blizzard North mensen die weg is gegaan en Flagship heeft gestart voor Hellgate London en maker van Diablo II) het hier over heeft in een interview over de ondergang van Flagship. Er bestonden in de tijd dat DII is gemaakt 2 afdelingen binnen Blizz. De Blizzard North mensen (met Roper) die DII maken en mensen in een Irvine locatie en die maken Warcraft en Starcraft. De stijl die ze daar gebruikten komt dus nu weer terug in DIII, lijkt het. Hier dat interview:

Interview Bill Roper (gaat meer over Flagship, Hellgate en Mythos, maar kan interessant zijn)

[Verwijderd]

scorpie schreef op zondag 26 oktober 2008 @ 00:39:
Rumor has it dat de 4e class de Warlock wordt:

http://diablo3x.com/new-rumor-warlock-4th-diablo-3-class

En weer ontkracht:

Update: It appears to be fanmade classes and will not be part of diablo III.

[psychoclown]

Verwijderd schreef op zondag 26 oktober 2008 @ 15:12:
[...]


En weer ontkracht:

Update: It appears to be fanmade classes and will not be part of diablo III.

Ontkracht wil ik het niet noemen, lees immers nergens een statement van Bashiok of iemand anders van Blizzard. Sowieso is het nogal logisch dat het fanmade is, daarvoor zijn het rumors en was er nog niks bekend. Ze hadden net zo goed wat andere classes kunnen vinden die zo goed uitgewerkt zijn als deze.
Wat ik wel denk is dat de resterende classes redelijk overeenkomen qua type met de pala en de ama, zal me dan ook niet verbazen als de bedenker van deze 2 classes er niet ver naast zit.

[Verwijderd]

Stiekem hoop ik op een char gebaseert op de afrikaanse stam strijders of capoeira(if you like). Snel, acrobatisch en closecombat.

[Verwijderd]

Verwijderd schreef op dinsdag 28 oktober 2008 @ 12:06:
Stiekem hoop ik op een char gebaseert op de afrikaanse stam strijders of capoeira(if you like). Snel, acrobatisch en closecombat.

Nou ja, we hebben de Afrikaanse Witch Doctor al. Misschien een soort kung fu monk dan?

[psychoclown]

Verwijderd schreef op dinsdag 28 oktober 2008 @ 12:06:
Stiekem hoop ik op een char gebaseert op de afrikaanse stam strijders of capoeira(if you like). Snel, acrobatisch en closecombat.

Eigenlijk dus beetje het assasin idee?
Denk eerder dat er een aura/enchantment class en hunter/nature class in komen.
Bij de hunter/nature class denk ik dan heel erg aan een Ranger a la TQ (Hunter + Nature class).
Beetje de summon spells van de druid mixed met de archer skills van de ama.

[Dalyxia]

even vergelijking tussen d2, wat ik ervan denk/ hoop

hier de class in D2 en erachter wat ik denk dat het wordt

D2 - D3

Barbarian - Barbarian
Sorceress - Wizard
Necromancer - Witchdocter (witchdocter is wel wat meer gefocussed op de "Curse Talent Tree")
Druid - de echte summoner, hopelijk nu wel 400 ravens tegelijk, groepje beren en natuurlijk de aloude shapeshift
Paladin - melee met Aura/ enchantments spells ala d2paladin aura's, d2sorc's Enchant, Warcraft3 Faerie Fire of Wow's Power word: Fortitude (geen blessed hammers iig )
Assasin - snelle vechter met soort van windwalk, mirror image ala warcraft 3 Blademaster of WoW's Roque
Amazon - iets met pijlen en een boog

sinds er geloof ik ook weer 7 classes komen net als in D2 LOD zullen er vast ongeveer dezelfde soort

[Verwijderd]

Verwijderd schreef op zondag 26 oktober 2008 @ 01:26:
Ik hoop zo dat D3 ook zo snel op de mac uitkomt als D2. Of misschien wel dat je met de windows cd's ook op je mac kan installeren.
Ik kan gewoon niet wachten op deze game. D2 staat al weer een maandje op me mac en begin weer zwaar verslaafd teraken

Normaal gesproken worden de games van Blizzard tegelijk gepubliceerd op PC en MAC. Als een van de weinige uitgevers zien zij wel in dat er genoeg gamers zijn die een MAC bezitten.

[Verwijderd]

Dalyxia schreef op dinsdag 28 oktober 2008 @ 15:44:
even vergelijking tussen d2, wat ik ervan denk/ hoop

hier de class in D2 en erachter wat ik denk dat het wordt

D2 - D3
Amazon - iets met pijlen en een boog

[Saeverix]

Verwijderd schreef op zondag 26 oktober 2008 @ 01:26:
Ik hoop zo dat D3 ook zo snel op de mac uitkomt als D2. Of misschien wel dat je met de windows cd's ook op je mac kan installeren.
Ik kan gewoon niet wachten op deze game. D2 staat al weer een maandje op me mac en begin weer zwaar verslaafd teraken

FAQ van de Diablo 3 site:

Will Diablo III be available on Windows and Mac simultaneously?
Yes. As with all of Blizzard Entertainment's recent releases, Diablo III will ship for both Windows and Mac simultaneously.

[Verwijderd]

Dalyxia schreef op dinsdag 28 oktober 2008 @ 15:44:
even vergelijking tussen d2, wat ik ervan denk/ hoop

hier de class in D2 en erachter wat ik denk dat het wordt

D2 - D3

Barbarian - Barbarian
Sorceress - Wizard
Necromancer - Witchdocter (witchdocter is wel wat meer gefocussed op de "Curse Talent Tree")
Druid - de echte summoner, hopelijk nu wel 400 ravens tegelijk, groepje beren en natuurlijk de aloude shapeshift
Paladin - melee met Aura/ enchantments spells ala d2paladin aura's, d2sorc's Enchant, Warcraft3 Faerie Fire of Wow's Power word: Fortitude (geen blessed hammers iig )
Assasin - snelle vechter met soort van windwalk, mirror image ala warcraft 3 Blademaster of WoW's Roque
Amazon - iets met pijlen en een boog

sinds er geloof ik ook weer 7 classes komen net als in D2 LOD zullen er vast ongeveer dezelfde soort

in D3 zitten 5 classes. In D2 ook, overigens. De expansion voegde er destijds 2 toe. Tevens heeft Blizz al gezegd dat ze compleet nieuwe classes willen. We Barbarian en wizard komen overeen, maar de witch doctor is echt iets compleet nieuws. Mogelijk de andere 2 classes ook.

[Pheno79]

Ik vind de witchdoctor anders verdomd veel op de necromancer lijken. Curses, summons en poison.

[psychoclown]

Verwijderd schreef op woensdag 29 oktober 2008 @ 09:09:
[...]


in D3 zitten 5 classes. In D2 ook, overigens. De expansion voegde er destijds 2 toe. Tevens heeft Blizz al gezegd dat ze compleet nieuwe classes willen. We Barbarian en wizard komen overeen, maar de witch doctor is echt iets compleet nieuws. Mogelijk de andere 2 classes ook.

Ja precies komen mogelijk wel weer 2 classes met een expansion.
De witch doctor is naar mijn mening niet echt een nieuwe class meer een merge van 2 d2classes met wat nieuwe skills erbij. Wel vet nonetheless

[FloydRaalte]

Ik denk niet dat het binnen the realm of Diablo past maar ik zou wel een soort van elf ras willen spelen ofzo. Stel je voor, i.p.v. een Amazon speel je een soort Legolas uit Lord of the Rings Maargoed dat blijft speculeren dus laten we maar gewoon afwachten. Ik speel nu Sacred 2 en das best grappig. Ook komen er meer leuke games aan zoals Gothic 4 en Divine Divinity 2 maar ik wacht toch echt met smart op de grootste van allen: Diablo 3. Ik kan trouwens ook iedereen die van engelse boeken houdt de Diablo reeks aanraden, ze zijn echt super! Ik lees altijd in bed voor dat ik ga slapen en ik betrap me erop dat ik steeds vroeger naar bed ga

[Dakreal]

FloydRaalte schreef op woensdag 29 oktober 2008 @ 09:35:
Ik denk niet dat het binnen the realm of Diablo past maar ik zou wel een soort van elf ras willen spelen ofzo. Stel je voor, i.p.v. een Amazon speel je een soort Legolas uit Lord of the Rings Maargoed dat blijft speculeren dus laten we maar gewoon afwachten. Ik speel nu Sacred 2 en das best grappig. Ook komen er meer leuke games aan zoals Gothic 4 en Divine Divinity 2 maar ik wacht toch echt met smart op de grootste van allen: Diablo 3. Ik kan trouwens ook iedereen die van engelse boeken houdt de Diablo reeks aanraden, ze zijn echt super! Ik lees altijd in bed voor dat ik ga slapen en ik betrap me erop dat ik steeds vroeger naar bed ga

Ik hoef echt geen Elven ras.. dit is diablo en geen Lord of the rings.. de legolasjes heb je al genoeg gehad in d2 -_-

Ik krijg steeds meer het idee dat iedereen wil dat Diablo3 op WoW gaat lijken. Ik hoop het absoluut niet want dan is het hele spel eigenlijk stuk gemaakt. De kracht van Diablo is de snelle directe hack & Slash actie met een fijne character customisation.

[psychoclown]

SpoTs schreef op woensdag 29 oktober 2008 @ 10:56:
[...]


Ik hoef echt geen Elven ras.. dit is diablo en geen Lord of the rings.. de legolasjes heb je al genoeg gehad in d2 -_-

Ik krijg steeds meer het idee dat iedereen wil dat Diablo3 op WoW gaat lijken. Ik hoop het absoluut niet want dan is het hele spel eigenlijk stuk gemaakt. De kracht van Diablo is de snelle directe hack & Slash actie met een fijne character customisation.

Krijg juist het andere gevoel, dat juist iedereen wil dat het op D2 lijkt. Ben ik namelijk ook wel voor, Blizzard neemt juist veel dingen van WoW over zoals de art-style etc. Niks mis mee hoor zolang het maar de feeling/gameplay van D2 heeft met uiteraard de itemfinddrang die zo verslavend werkt.

[psychoclown]

Update:

New Screens, Art

Screens

---

Art

---

Changelog

Updates: • 28-06-'08 - Opening tweede deel Diablo3 topic nog aan flinke updates onderhevig. • 29-06-'08 - Sectie Content toegevoegd. • 30-06-'08 - Sectie Algemene Info uitgebreid. Plaatje van Witch doctor gefixed. Sectie Aanvullende Info toegevoegd. Topic over 2 posts verdeeld. • 31-06-'08 - TS Code opgeschoond. • 03-07-'08 - Aanvullende Info sectie vernieuwd/updated. Character Classes aangevuld. • 25-07-'08 - Wallpaper toegevoegd aan de Content Sectie. • 04-08-'08 - Fixed Skills links gelukkig door iemand op photobucket gezet. Skills UI pic niet kunnen redden. • 15-08-'08 - Nieuwe Wallpaper toegevoegd. • 05-09-'08 - Diablo Timeline aan de links sectie toegevoegd andere updates volgen later. News Updates Sectie toegevoegd, alle updates bij elkaar! • 20-10-'08 - Character: Wizard toegevoegd + Skilltrees ipv skills. • 29-10-'08 - Nieuwe screens toegevoegd!

[ Voor 25% gewijzigd door psychoclown op 29-10-2008 23:29 ]

[psychoclown]

Update:

Basic Blizzcon Game Information

The build at Blizzcon was set up to emphasize combat and leaping right into the action gameplay, rather than exploring a town or building a character. New characters started out at level 6, with all of their skill points already distributed across the three skill trees. Each character type had a couple of active skills set to their hotkeys, and various passive skills enabled to improve their performance. None of the characters were built wisely for the real game, where players will (apparently) want to specialize in just one skill tree, and will be spending all their early points in just a few important skills

Other factors emphasized the speed and action design of the demo. There were no NPC merchants at all. No one selling or buying items, potions, or anything else. The only potions to be found were health pots, which dropped very infrequently (I found 4 or 5 per character from clearing out the entire demo dungeon.), and even rarer were elixirs of strength and dexterity that boosted one attribute for 300 seconds. There was no NPC to provide item identification, but ID scrolls dropped quite frequently. There were no town portal scrolls at all though, and the only town portal seen in the demo was cast by an NPC. Players could not pass through it.

The demo was not greatly nerfed, but the characters were boosted. I was told that this was the starting area of the game, just as the D3 team has been playing it, but of course their characters start off at level 1, not level 6. So of course the demo was fairly easy; the D3 team wanted new players and media and others to have fun and kill, without it being so easy that god mode boredom set in. But they didn’t achieve that by nerfing everything; they just gave players a considerable head start. I found the Barbarian and Witch Doctor fairly easy all through the demo, but the Wizard was a struggle on the lower levels of the dungeon. Active skills were capped at level 1 in the Blizzcon build, and with a variety of those, and her not-very-powerful low level passives, the Wizard was quite fragile. Well, she was probably about as durable as the Witch Doctor, but the WD had Mongrels to tank, which made a huge difference.

Dungeon Levels
The dungeon levels in the demo were quite small, compared to how large the dungeons are in the full game. Leonard Boyarsky told me that the dungeons in the Blizzcon build were 6-8 rooms, while the full ones are 12-15, or larger. The definition of “rooms” in this context is hard to express to people who haven’t played yet, but it’s not just one literal room; it means a square, a block of the randomly generated levels. A “room” as Blizzard uses the term during D3’s development is about as much as you’d see on oh, 8 or 10 screens. (Rough estimate by me.) Within those “rooms” you’ll find numerous individual chambers, stairways up and down, special event elements, traps, destructibles, etc.

I was also told by Leonard that players were getting through far more of the dungeons than the team expected. Players were given about 15 minutes per play session on the main floor, and the D3 Team didn’t think that would be enough to finish the demo. Leonard said they’d been playing it for a couple of weeks, and it usually took them 20-30 minutes to clear out. His explanation was that Blizzard employees were clearing out everything to build up their characters and find loot, while players were more interested in seeing as much as they could see, and they (we) were just running through things, skipping NPC conversations, not bothering to pick up items, etc, in order to find the stairs and move deeper into the dungeons and reach the Skeleton King.

Leonard also told me that there were two random quest events in the demo, and that they varied from game to game, just like such elements will in the real game. And he confirmed what I’d figured by playing it myself. The layout of Tristram was fixed and non-random, though the monsters found in it and some of the elements like clickable corpses could vary. The top two levels of the dungeon were fully random, including the quest events found in them, but the third level was a set design, with several events on the way to reaching the throne room, where you awakened and then battled the Skeleton King and his minions.

Blood, Guts, and an M-Rating

One of my questions going into Blizzcon was about Diablo III’s tone and mood, and how much gruesome background art and blood would be present. Most players feel that Diablo I was much more of a horror game than Diablo II. Everyone who played the first title has a very clear memory of how scared they were when they first heard the Butcher give his “Ahh, Fresh Meat!” battle cry, and the dungeons, especially the Hell levels, were well-decorated by bloody, naked, dismembered bodies on stakes. Diablo II had plenty of blood and gore and horror elements too, (check out the tortured corpses and moats of blood in the Act 2 Sewers and Durance of Hate on your next Mephisto run, and there are some nice gory wall decorations in Nihlathak’s dungeon as well), but it didn’t have the same sort of creepy, ominous, horror tone that D1 had.
The D3 team has often said that they were going to recreate the mood and theme of D1 more than D2, and that they wanted to make D3 more of a horror game. I was dubious of this claim going into Blizzcon, but was pleasantly surprised by how horror-filled D3 is. The tone was set with gore and corpses in the very first scene. New players started off in a tiny encampment with just two NPCs. One of them was a talkative soldier, but the other was a silent meat wagon driver who spent his time endlessly shuffling between a wagon stacked high with bodies, from which he kept pulling corpses that he carried over and dumped onto a burning pyre. The animation was great, and the bodies were very well drawn as well. They looked like corpses, bloody and murdered ones.

The mood continued as soon as a player moved out into the ruins of Tristram. The scenery was dark and oppressive, and no, the screenshots don’t at all do it justice. The floating, partially transparent mist looks so much better in the game than in the screenshots, where it just makes things look smudged and blurry. The black, gnarled trees, clusters of crows that flew away when the player got close enough to trigger them, dozens of ruined, blasted houses you could run through, bodies lying here and there, and small bunches of zombies to rout gave the area a great, creepy, doomed mood.

Playing in the Blizzcon press room with crowds of journalists around, bright lights overhead, the only game sound through tinny headphones, and my attention mostly on gathering information, rather than enjoying myself, I didn’t feel any tension or atmosphere. I still enjoyed the visuals and theme, and found myself wishing I could play it at home, in a dark room with some candles burning, and the sound up high. It would be shivery. It will be shivery. I just hope Blizzard doesn’t have to tone down the gore and gruesome visuals too much, for the ratings boards.

There were a number of nice set pieces elsewhere in Tristram that added to the mood. A human hand is seen at one point, clawing at the earth, before being yanked down into a dark cellar from which come horrible screams and a fountain of blood. Ghosts wander the streets, sobbing quietly and pathetically. Zombies are seen gnawing on corpses, and their moans and groans are very horror movie appropriate. The gruesome mood isn’t continued into the dungeon, but the design and graphics of the dungeon areas were very effective. They weren’t trying to be scary, but the monsters are so well animated and formed that they are threatening and very real. You want to destroy them, and even though the zombies you find early on are basically just walking experience pots, they’re loathsome and a little bit scary. I was again reminded of Diablo I, where even the weakest starting monsters were somewhat threatening, emotionally, if not from a survival standpoint.

The death animations of the monsters are well done, and they’re very visceral and bloody. Normal deaths are quite messy, with body parts breaking off in gratuitous fashion and blood spilling, but the real fun comes from critical hit deaths. When monsters die from critical hit damage, (which happens quite often), they get an extra special death animation. They literally explode, in appropriate fashion for the type of damage that did them in. You’ll see frost on the shattered pieces, or lightning flickering along with an extra nova blast, or flames charring the chunks of meat, or gouts of blood from the corpse explosion like critical hits with physical damage. I was frequently impressed with how much blood spilled onto the floor during battles, and the ensanguinated stone and scattered arms, legs, heads, chunks of rib cage, and various internal organs left lying around after a big fight was just awesome. (In the game I mean. Not real life. Do not want FBI visit!)

On the whole I was quite pleasantly surprised by the gruesome nature of D3. Much more than I’d expected, and more reminiscent of the mood of D1 than D2.

NPCs.

The Blizzcon demo had very little NPC interaction, and was not like any of the towns in Diablo or Diablo II. There were no NPC merchants at all, so players had no way to buy or sell equipment, purchase potions, or make repairs. These aren’t complaints since such actions weren’t required in the Blizzcon version of the game. They’re just useful for fans to know, to put the information into context.

Captain Rumford
There were several NPCs in the demo, though none were merchants. The most visible and interesting was Captain Rumford who functioned as the town greeter. The D3 Team has promised that the characters in Diablo 3 will be full of personality, and that the NPCs will react very differently to each of them, as part of their unique stories. This was demonstrated very nicely by Captain Rumford’s dialogue, which varied quite a bit between the three classes. (We couldn’t get enough game time to play both genders for all of the characters, so can’t comment on how much the dialogue varies from the male to female. It was fairly similar for the M/F Barbarian, at least.)

Rumford’s dialogues differed quite a bit, but in all of them he imparted the essential game-starting plot info. A flaming object had recently fallen from the sky and crashed through the roof of the Tristram Cathedral. Great evil had awakened since then, and the area was now overrun with monsters. All of the characters knew this much, and said they’d come after hearing news of the fire from the sky.

* The Barbarian: Rumford was afraid of the Barbarian, fearing the giant hero was a dangerous savage. Once the Barbarian spoke calmly and confidently Rumford was put at ease, and he became quite friendly and almost star-struck as he wished the Barbarian good luck.

* The Witch Doctor: Rumford was contemptuous and dismissive of the scantily-clad, foreign-looking Witch Doctor, making comments about how she would surely be killed by the first monster encountered. The Witch Doctor made a few cryptic comments about not judging others by their appearance, but didn’t say much, exhibiting quiet self-confidence rather than arguing.

* The Wizard: Only the female wizard was playable in the Blizzcon build, and she was very saucy, sassy, headstrong, and brashly-confident. Her dialogue with Rumford was somewhat flirty, as she taunted him for being afraid to face the monsters himself, boasted that she would clear out the demonic infestation in nothing flat, and all but ordered Rumford to buy her a drink to toast her success when she returned. Rumford seemed somewhat overwhelmed by her arrogance and authority, and became rather meek and soft spoken before the Wizard’s powerful presence.

One thing I wanted to find out was if Rumford said anything different to players who returned to town after completing a quest. There were no town portals in the Blizzcon demo, and since dead characters respawned at the last checkpoint reached in the dungeon, the only way to go back to town was to run all the way up through the dungeon, and then through ruined Tristram. That wasn’t the best expenditure of our limited play time, and in any event, the Blizzcon demo ended when the Skeleton King was defeated, so there was no time to see if Rumford had any witty remarks to share upon that event.

Mr. Meat Wagon
Besides Rumford, there was a meat wagon driver in the town area. He had no important dialogue, but did a nice job setting the mood as he shuffled between the wagon and a blazing fire pit, carrying bleeding corpses from the wagon and throwing them onto the pyre. The bodies he produced came from behind the wagon, out of sight of the player, and when he threw them down on the other bodies on the fire they landed in the rear, again our of sight. So no, you don’t actually see the pile of corpses in the wagon decrease, nor the pile on the fire grow. But it’s a nice piece of animation and the background art is great. The screenshots don’t do it justice, since you don’t get the visuals of the floating mist over all of Tristram, the crackling fire, the flames flickering up around the bodies, the thudding sounds of the corpses as they’re dropped, etc

Cellar Grinder
Moving into the ruined Tristram, there was a nice piece of scripted visual. A human arm is seen reaching up from an open cellar, and as the player watches the hand clutches at the ground as panicked screams burst forth. The hand is then yanked down into the cellar while ferocious, bestial sound effects play, and a fountain of blood squirts out of the cellar, splatting down on the dark earth. The cellar isn’t clickable; you can’t go down and fight whatever claimed the human, but it’s a great little visual.

Ghosts
Another NPC (sort of) found in the town is a wandering female ghost. Her graphics are very impressive in the game, with great transparency and subtle colors. She can’t be clicked on or interacted with, and just wanders along, moaning and wailing about how “She’s lost down there. She’ll never find her way without the doll.” This section shows off one of the nice sound/dialogue techniques in D3, since you can see the ghost from a distance, but you can’t hear her words unless/until you are standing very near her. This ghost’s daughter is seen later on in the demo, when the quest is finished. More on that in the quests section.

Injured Villager
There was also an injured villager found near the entrance to the Tristram Cathedral. He essentially recreated the opening quest from Diablo I, telling of a powerful monster within who must be destroyed. The Skeleton King, this time, when it was the Butcher in D1. (The Skeleton King was a later quest in that game.)
The scene is more fun in D3, since when you find the man he’s being gnawed on by three zombies, who are squatting around his almost-corpse and enjoying the tender parts. Once you destroy the zombies the man is clickable, and when given the chance he gasps out his last words, warning of the power of the awakened Skeleton King. Your character says a few words about avenging his death, and here again the dialogues differ between the classes. Not that much though, since it’s just a short “You will be avenged.” type remark.

Chatting Monsters
An interesting sort of quest that presented story info was found shortly after entering the dungeon. When walking along one level, two human monster could be seen down below. One who looks like some type of Dark Cultist is seen standing and waiting, while the other, who is basically an Igor-type minion, runs up. Igor is excited, shouting about having at last found some sort of magical item. The Cultist gloats, and says something about how they can use this to finally awake him, or call him back from his sleep.

The conversation hints at the awakening of the Skeleton King, and you can read more about this in the section on quests. The dialogue is entirely optional to listen to, and it can only be heard while your character is within about half a screen of the two monsters/NPCs. You can hang around on the passageway above them and listen, or run off and kill monsters. It’s up to you. There’s no way down to their passageway at that point, and it’s fairly clear, even to a brand new player that there’s information being presented here, that you may or may not choose to listen to. You encounter these monsters again, later in the demo.

Lost NPC Fighters
Another quest in the Blizzcon demo was a sort of escort quest. While working through the dungeon, the player comes upon a swarm of monsters working over a fallen human. After engaging and destroying the zombies and skeletons, the human gets up and announces that he’s a commanding solder (didn’t get his name) who was cut off from his men. He asks your help in rejoining them, and follows you as you run away. Not too far away you find half a dozen of his men fighting off a large mob of monsters. You and the commander join the battle and his men shout a welcome and give cries of encouragement as the battle rages. The NPC warriors look like the ones we’ve seen in other screenshots, like this one.

Once the monsters are cleared out the commander thanks you for your help, and then he and his men vanish through a town portal that you can not pass through yourself. It’s a bit insulting; “Thanks for saving us, but we’re going to leave you here to die while we head back to town, ale, and whores now. Kthxbye!”

---

[DarthDavy]

We kennen nu 3 van de 5 klasses. Ik denk dat vrij veilig kunnen aannemen dat er een Ranger/Hunter/Amazon archetype bijkomt. Eigenlijk gewoon iets dat met pijl en boog gaat schieten. Voor de vijfde zijn er meerder mogelijkheden. Paladin? Zou wel kunnen als tegenhanger tov de witchdoctor (evil vs good character alignment). Of misschien iets anders paladin-achtig zoals een Seraphim of een Archangel. Uiteindelijk telt niet de naam van de klasse, maar meer het idee achter de klasse. Een Druid-archetype is natuurlijk ook altijd cool: een klasse die zich in verschillende vormen kan transformeren. Dit doet het ook altijd goed in dit soort spellen. En ten slotte is er ook het Assassin/Monk/Kung-Fu archetype... Dat is heel populair, maar an sich is het ook gewoon een melee-fighter zoals de barbarian.

Lekker leuk, zo speculeren.

[Verwijderd]

Ik ben benieuwd of die sfeer ook echt zo is als ze beschrijven. Met doom 3 voor de pc werd ik er ook helemaal ingezogen. Was gewoon uniek om met de lichten uit en het geluid aan te spelen. Vooral met de zaklamp wat zoeken naar zombies. Het zal wel niet zo aanwezig zijn als in Doom 3 maar ik ben benieuwd wat voor gevoel je krijgt als je door die dungeons loopt. Ik heb al wel verschillende filmpjes gezien op de diablo 3 website waar ze dan in een dungeon liepen maar is dit dan ook de uiteindelijke sfeer? Of zullen ze dit nog meer tweaken? Met tweaken bedoel ik een meer 'donkere' sfeer.

[psychoclown]

Verwijderd schreef op donderdag 30 oktober 2008 @ 14:05:
Ik ben benieuwd of die sfeer ook echt zo is als ze beschrijven. Met doom 3 voor de pc werd ik er ook helemaal ingezogen. Was gewoon uniek om met de lichten uit en het geluid aan te spelen. Vooral met de zaklamp wat zoeken naar zombies. Het zal wel niet zo aanwezig zijn als in Doom 3 maar ik ben benieuwd wat voor gevoel je krijgt als je door die dungeons loopt. Ik heb al wel verschillende filmpjes gezien op de diablo 3 website waar ze dan in een dungeon liepen maar is dit dan ook de uiteindelijke sfeer? Of zullen ze dit nog meer tweaken? Met tweaken bedoel ik een meer 'donkere' sfeer.

Dat weet alleen Blizzard wat we nu weten is dat het er zo uit zal gaan zien. Wat we ook weten is dat het pas uitkomt als het af is dus mogelijk wordt er nog geknutseld aan de sfeer maar dat weet van ons dus niemand.

[OneUp]

Verwijderd schreef op donderdag 30 oktober 2008 @ 14:05:
Ik ben benieuwd of die sfeer ook echt zo is als ze beschrijven. Met doom 3 voor de pc werd ik er ook helemaal ingezogen. Was gewoon uniek om met de lichten uit en het geluid aan te spelen. Vooral met de zaklamp wat zoeken naar zombies. Het zal wel niet zo aanwezig zijn als in Doom 3 maar ik ben benieuwd wat voor gevoel je krijgt als je door die dungeons loopt. Ik heb al wel verschillende filmpjes gezien op de diablo 3 website waar ze dan in een dungeon liepen maar is dit dan ook de uiteindelijke sfeer? Of zullen ze dit nog meer tweaken? Met tweaken bedoel ik een meer 'donkere' sfeer.

De sfeer zal ongeveer vergelijkbaar zijn met onderstaande foto:

[psychoclown]

Update:

Witch Doctor Gameplay Report

Witch Doctor Gameplay
To make the obvious comparison to Diablo II, the Witch Doctor plays a bit like a Necromancer with some low-power Sorceress skills. The WD has some minions that can tank, defensive curse-like spells, and a bunch of cool, short range attack spells. The character was very effective in the Blizzcon demo, and I had little trouble plowing through almost every encounter. Occasionally I’d have to recast my tanking Mongrels, or back off to let my mana refill for a moment, but on the whole the Witch Doctor felt very strong and I was never in danger of dying, thanks to my sturdy Mongrels and my effective, mana-inexpensive attack spells.

That said, don’t start thinking the WD is overpowered, since the Blizzcon demo is not the final game. It’s not even the current game. Players at Blizzcon were starting off with level 6 characters who had various skill points already distributed, and taking those level 6 chars into battle against the very beginning of the game. Whether from balance of inappropriate skill distribution, I found the Wizard fairly challenging, but the Witch Doctor and Barbarian quite easy. I was never near death with the WD or Barb, and only had to retreat once or twice with those characters, when I found a really large mob around a boss.

As I say, this was just a nerfed demo version for new players to get their feet wet with; it doesn’t tell us a thing about game difficulty long term.

Combat
A typical battle in the demo involved my two mongrels (2 could be cast with 1 point in the skill, and as with all active skills in the demo, only 1 point could be placed) running up to start biting on some skeletons, zombies, or other monsters. I’d run quickly behind them, and from a safe spot in the back row I’d unload my spells on the enemies. I used Firebats most often, since it had such a cool graphic and sound effect. It was quite effective too; it worked like a short range Inferno spell; dealing constant fire damage to anything in range, and was more than strong enough to finish off all smaller enemies in just a second or two. The flames of the bats spread to my Mongrels as well, as did the poison from Locust Swarm or Plague of Toads. There was no in-game listing of how much damage those effects add to the mongrels, (tool tip documentation was fairly lacking throughout, but that’s not surprising for a game still under heavy development) and I never systematically studied it, counting bites to kill a common monster when a mongrel was enchanted, or not. It certainly wasn’t anything smashingly big; and the vast majority of damage done to the monsters came from my WD’s direct spells. Mongrels were useful tanks, but didn’t do a lot of killing on their own.The attack spells are all fairly inexpensive in mana cost, and with a rapid mana regeneration I was very seldom out of mana, despite using the attack spells (chiefly Firebats, Plague of Toads, and Locust Swarm) constantly. Summoning a Mongrel was more expensive; they cost about 50 mana to summon from my pool of around 100 mana, but they lasted for quite a while, and since my attack spells were sufficient to kill with, I didn’t often have to sacrifice (explode) a Mongrel for the added damage.

Plague of Toads were great fun to use too, though less damaging than Firebats. At level 1 (the only level possible for active spells in the Blizzcon demo) the WD tossed out three toads, which then hopped forward like scaly, slimy, living Charged Bolts. They weren’t entirely mindless—they homed in on enemies, and exploded with a splat of green acid (poison) when they hit a target. If there was no target in range, the toads would hop 3 or 4 times, covering maybe half the visible screen, before bursting in air. They left behind splats of acid on the ground that would damage enemies who stood in it. The toads shared their poison to Mongrels, just like the various fire spells and Locust Swarm.

Spell Effectiveness

A constant for most of the WD’s attack spells was short range. Plague of Toads, Locust Swarm, Soul Harvest, and Firebats were all effective, but all had a rather short range, extending maybe 3-4 yards from the WD, at most. The design goal there is pretty clear; the D3 team wants WDs to stay active and get right up into the action. The curses, Mass Confusion and Horrify, work much the same, rather than expanding to cover half the screen like most of the D2 Necromancer’s curses do.
In short, Witch Doctors have a lot of magical toys, but they can’t use them safely from the back row. Only Skull of Flame could be cast (thrown) from a considerable distance, and while that spell dealt substantial fire, it was fairly slow to use, and to strike. It’s not Fireball; it can be thrown over nearby targets to hit ones in the back row, which makes it useful to take out summoners or monster mages behind their minions. On the other hand, it’s got a fairly slow casting rate, and the lobbing trajectory of the skull makes it take longer still to reach the impact spot.

During longer battles I usually had to cast a new mongrel, to keep my protection intact. The WD had about 100 mana, and while the attack spells were very low cost, the Mongrels were about 50 to cast. I didn’t often blow them up, since the attack spells were damaging enough, and spending the mana to Sacrifice one, then to quickly summon another one for protection was very mana-expensive. The Soul Harvest skill was designed to help with that sort of thing, allowing me to finish off multiple enemies at once, gaining considerable mana from each of them. I seldom needed it, and found it to be less than effective as a killing weapon. It wasn’t that damaging, and wasn’t that cheap to cast either; so I had to make sure it was going to kill at least a few monsters to be cost effective.

After a long battle, one during which my Mongrels took a lot of damage, I’d summon one or two new ones, before moving off to the next encounter. I tried to remember to do this immediately after the fight, so my mana would have longer to recharge, and could start doing so while I was still picking up and examining loot.

Items
Witch Doctors weren’t helpless without spells. They weren’t exactly Barbarians, but I found their melee attacks fairly effective, and to save mana I often finished off the last skeleton or zombie with some good old fashioned left clicking. Since items are not going to have strength or other requirements to equip them (other than Clvl, and some class-specifics), it should be possible to play a reasonably-effective combat Witch Doctor. Not as the character’s main thrust, but supplementing weapon damage with spells and minion attacks should be viable. It’s hard to project too far on this yet, until we know more of the WD’s skills. However, since Wizards have some weapon damage boosting skills, it seems pretty likely the Witch Doctor will get some as well.

One of the design goals of Diablo III is to implement a wide variety of items, including weapons that boost stats (other than magic find) that are useful to mage characters. I found some evidence of that during my Blizzcon play time, since my Witch Doctor found a number of weapons that boosted my experience gain or my spell damage. I greatly enjoyed a staff that added 19% damage to spells, and definitely noticed the effect when paring that with Firebats.

Witch Doctor Skills
The Blizzcon demo only showed off 11 WD skills (compared to 50+ for the Wizard and Barbarian), and only skills from the first two tiers of each skill tree. Here’s a quick listing for reference. All of these skills are detailed on the wiki pages.

Plague Skill Tree
Plague of Toads, Locust Swarm, Spider Statue

Spirit Skill Tree
Skull of Flame, Soul Harvest, Firebats, Mass Confusion

Voodoo Skill Tree
Summon Mongrel, Sacrifice, Horrify, Wall of Zombies

Since we only know a few skills from each tree, all of them active skills, we can only speculate about what we’ll see from the WD long term. Tier 3, 4, and higher skills may totally change the apparent design focus of the WD. Even the low level passives, none of which were visible at Blizzcon, might work in unexpected ways. That said, we can speculate a bit, since we’ve seen the design concepts for the Barbarian and Wizard, and have some comprehension of how the D3 Team is developing the characters.

The WD’s skills seem to be oddly organized, at first look. There are attack skills in all trees, and curse-like mind control skills in two trees, though the only minion (so far) is in the Voodoo tree. This is unlike the Diablo II organizational system, which would have had all the curses in one tree, all the summonings in another, and all the attack spells in the third. However, as we’ve seen with the Wizard’s and Barbarian’s skills, the D3 skill trees are much less thematically-linked. This is for an obvious reason, since the higher level skills in each tree require 10, 15, or more points to be spent in that tree. The characters seem to be designed to specialize in just one tree, with perhaps points in one or two low level skills from the other trees. There are a lot of skills in each tree though, enough that every Witch Doctor who specializes in Plague, or Spirit, or Voodoo won’t be identical.

All of the WD skills on display at Blizzcon were active skills; ones you had to actually click to use, and that did stuff when you clicked them. So even though there were only 11 WD skills, we actually know a lot about how a WD will play at lower levels, since these are all the active skills the character will have available. There might be one or two more, but the Wizard and Barbarian had 11 (or fewer) active skills in their first two tiers, so it seems likely that the other Tier 1 and 2 WD skills will be passives and masteries. It’s not hard to imagine them either, since they’ll follow the format established by the Wizard and Barbarian. The other characters have a few masteries that boost every skill in a given tree, or boost specific skills in those trees, and it’s likely the WD will follow suit. Some speculation:

Plague Skills: Active Skills: Plague of Toads, Locust Swarm, and Spider Statue. It’s a safe bet that we’ll see a passive that boosts the damage of all skills in this tree, or perhaps all WD poison damage skills. Others will probably improve the individual skills; something like Improved Plague of Toads/Locust Swarm/Spider Statue, with more damage, better odds of critical strike, etc. It’s also a decent bet that there will be faster casting rate and/or lower mana cost passives for the WD, as there are for the Wizard.

Spirit Skills: Active Skills: Skull of Flame, Soul Harvest, Firebats, and Mass Confusion. Likely passives will provide boosts to fire damage, boosts to the duration or intensity of the mind control skill(s), and/or a boost to the % of life/mana returned from Soul Harvest.

Voodoo Skills: Active Skills: Summon Mongrel, Sacrifice, Horrify, and Wall of Zombies. Passives will probably boost the damage/hit points of the mongrels, or of all summoned pets, assuming there are others further down this tree. The explosive damage of a Sacrifice (Mongrel or other unknown minions) could also be boosted, as could the duration and damage of the Zombie Wall.

It will be interesting to see what additional active skills do. All of the attack spells (except for Skull of Flame) have a short range. So do the curse-like mind control abilities. Will that be the way of all the WD’s skills, balancing their power with short range? Will the WD get one long range spell per tree? Will there be some sort of tanking, summoned creature in every tree, or will most players stick points into a low level summoning from one tree, no matter which tree they specialize in? It didn’t seem likely that the WD could play very effectively without any minions; the character was very mage-like, with low hit points, but without the powerful spells the Wizard can use to survive without assistance.

---

Environmental Damage against a Player?

Environmental and interactive objects and traps which use the physix engine might be monitored closely by Blizzard in the internal alpha and future beta. These might be removed or tweaked depending the degree of exploits used to affect other players. Blizzard wants to create a co-op experience that makes players work together as a team. An experience without griefers or gankers who dedicate themselves to killing players when they are low in health or fighting other mobs.

I clicked a mechanism on a wall while playing the Diablo III demo at Blizzcon. A chandelier fell from the ceiling. I ran my Barbarian underneath, and it crashed on his head dealing damage and dazing him for a few seconds. These types of mechanisms or traps could be used against other players to cause damage or provoke their deaths if timed correctly when they are low in health.

In PvP, can a player utilize the interactive environment to cause harm to another player? Can certain Mobs be able to use the interactive environment against you?
Bashiok: Right now if you knock down a wall on top of, or drop a chandelier on the head of someone in your party, it does damage/"daze" them. There’s some potential issues with it, right now it’s sort of just there because of the way those object interact with player characters as a whole. It’s possible that due to exploitative or griefing potential they just can’t continue to work that way. We’ll see.

Enemies will destroy some/most destructible objects if they’re in their way. Whether that may include actual damage dealing destructibles or not is probably more of a design decision on a case by case basis. We sort of want to reserve that for the player too I think, being able to damage enemies with the destructbles, but specific creatures that use the environment to their advantage are always cool.

Bashiok also posted an interesting reply in a thread about the Diablo 3 music, and segued into discussion of how close (not very) to completion the title is.

Bashiok: Well, the overture for Diablo III is available on iTunes. As overtures so often do, it takes bits from the prominent tone-setting compositions already written and puts them all together. So in that regard the basic outline and tone of composition for the game is in place, but no I think it would be impossible to compose and record everything completely before the game is much closer to being done.

I do recommend checking out the overture if you have the ability.

I can’t decide how far along they are in anything. They are sending mixed signals all over the place. Before blizzcon, they were “far along” .. then during/after blizzcon they are “not far along”. They release barbarian and witch doctor first, but the wizard was actually the first class they made. But the demo at blizzcon didn’t have the male version of the wizard, but had both sexes of the WD and Barb.

My head asplode!

I don’t think any one said before BlizzCon that we were “far along”, it’s kind of a nebulous statement any way. I think some people’s perceptions of the game were that we were far along, and that likely shaped some of our desire to make it fairly clear that it’s still early on.

Where did you get the impression that the Wizard was the first class we designed/created? That isn’t the case.

---

[Baardmeester]

OneUp schreef op donderdag 30 oktober 2008 @ 14:47:
[...]

De sfeer zal ongeveer vergelijkbaar zijn met onderstaande foto:

[afbeelding]

lol

[Dalyxia]

psychoclown schreef op vrijdag 31 oktober 2008 @ 21:31:

Update:

Witch Doctor Gameplay Report

[...]

---

Environmental Damage against a Player?

[...]

---

Mooie uitleg van die gast, echt je voelt de gameplay eraf stralen, oh shit man, dit wordt echt het bruutste spel dat ik ooit ga spelen (al hoewel Left 4 Dead ook een eind komt denk ik )

[psychoclown]

Dalyxia schreef op zondag 02 november 2008 @ 16:22:
[...]


Mooie uitleg van die gast, echt je voelt de gameplay eraf stralen, oh shit man, dit wordt echt het bruutste spel dat ik ooit ga spelen (al hoewel Left 4 Dead ook een eind komt denk ik )

Jazeker, ook lekker uitgebreid zodat we zoveel mogelijk info meekrijgen alsof we het zelf gespeeld hebben.

[Dakreal]

Nu nog een release date.. en het zou een verassing zijn als ze zeggen.. 25 december ligt ie in de winkel of een paar dagen ervoor (A)

@ hieronder, ik weet het.. maar het zou erg fijn zijn als die in 2008 komt

Kan me het voor blizzard daarentegen niet voorstellen.. als ze D3 uitbrengen snijden ze zichzelf in de vingers met Wotlk ( ga ik even vanuit )

[ Voor 45% gewijzigd door Dakreal op 03-11-2008 10:39 ]

[TrailBlazer]

25 December 2009 lijkt mij best wel reeel anders.

[TheFes]

SpoTs schreef op maandag 03 november 2008 @ 10:11:
Nu nog een release date.. en het zou een verassing zijn als ze zeggen.. 25 december ligt ie in de winkel of een paar dagen ervoor (A)

@ hieronder, ik weet het.. maar het zou erg fijn zijn als die in 2008 komt

Kan me het voor blizzard daarentegen niet voorstellen.. als ze D3 uitbrengen snijden ze zichzelf in de vingers met Wotlk ( ga ik even vanuit )

Het is nog bij lange na niet af, dus 25 december 2008 lijkt me een onmogelijke target.

[psychoclown]

SpoTs schreef op maandag 03 november 2008 @ 10:11:
Nu nog een release date.. en het zou een verassing zijn als ze zeggen.. 25 december ligt ie in de winkel of een paar dagen ervoor (A)

@ hieronder, ik weet het.. maar het zou erg fijn zijn als die in 2008 komt

Kan me het voor blizzard daarentegen niet voorstellen.. als ze D3 uitbrengen snijden ze zichzelf in de vingers met Wotlk ( ga ik even vanuit )

Zou ik anders niet echt fijn vinden want dan hebben we maar een halve diablogame
Laat ze maar lekker werken totdat het perfect is we zien het vanzelf wel verschijnen, kan me toch wel lekker maken met alle info die gestaag naar buiten komt.

[Dakreal]

psychoclown schreef op maandag 03 november 2008 @ 10:46:
[...]

Zou ik anders niet echt fijn vinden want dan hebben we maar een halve diablogame
Laat ze maar lekker werken totdat het perfect is we zien het vanzelf wel verschijnen, kan me toch wel lekker maken met alle info die gestaag naar buiten komt.

Beetje fantasie gebruiken, stel dat als big suprise het WEL klaar is.. zou toch machtig zijn? maar ik denk ook dat kerst 2009 een betere kanshebber is.. maar hoop doet leven he ;-)

[psychoclown]

SpoTs schreef op maandag 03 november 2008 @ 10:48:
[...]


Beetje fantasie gebruiken, stel dat als big suprise het WEL klaar is.. zou toch machtig zijn? maar ik denk ook dat kerst 2009 een betere kanshebber is.. maar hoop doet leven he ;-)

Denk best dat veel mensen dat leuk zouden vinden maar ik niet, zou het net zoiets zijn als RA3 die is er voor mij ook opeens uit de lucht komen vallen. De hype ernaar toe vind ik juist ook mooi maarja daar verschillen meningen

[Dakreal]

psychoclown schreef op maandag 03 november 2008 @ 10:56:
[...]

Denk best dat veel mensen dat leuk zouden vinden maar ik niet, zou het net zoiets zijn als RA3 die is er voor mij ook opeens uit de lucht komen vallen. De hype ernaar toe vind ik juist ook mooi maarja daar verschillen meningen

Voor red alert is na deel 2 geen hype meer nodig ;-) maar idd.. D3 zal straks een flinke hype worden

[Dalyxia]

psychoclown schreef op maandag 03 november 2008 @ 10:56:
[...]

Denk best dat veel mensen dat leuk zouden vinden maar ik niet, zou het net zoiets zijn als RA3 die is er voor mij ook opeens uit de lucht komen vallen. De hype ernaar toe vind ik juist ook mooi maarja daar verschillen meningen

laat ik mijn mening over RA3 hier maar niet gaan vertolken XD, hij kwam wel zo ineens uit de lucht vallen... als een bak stront met een strikje erom, maar das mijn mening

hype's creeeren verwachtingen, en blizzard is eigenlijk de enige developer die altijd de verwachtingen waar heeft gemaakt, ook al duurt het wat lang altijd voordat een game in de winkel ligt, maar juist daarom zijn het altijd van zulke perfecte complete games, ook al weet je dat bij D3 bijvoorbeeld zeker weten een expansion a la D2's LOD zal komen, ik hoop alleen dat ze die expansion niet te snel er achter aan uitbrengen

anyway, das voor latere zorg, eerst maar is dit bruut gave spel op mijn harde schijf krijgen

[Verwijderd]

Dalyxia schreef op maandag 03 november 2008 @ 12:20:
[...]


laat ik mijn mening over RA3 hier maar niet gaan vertolken XD, hij kwam wel zo ineens uit de lucht vallen... als een bak stront met een strikje erom, maar das mijn mening

Ik wil het niet zeggen, maar doe het toch

[psychoclown]

SpoTs schreef op maandag 03 november 2008 @ 10:58:
[...]


Voor red alert is na deel 2 geen hype meer nodig ;-) maar idd.. D3 zal straks een flinke hype worden

Klopt en het schijnt niks voor te stellen, tis dan maar goed ook anders krijg je van die crysis taferelen enzo.

Dalyxia schreef op maandag 03 november 2008 @ 12:20:
[...]


laat ik mijn mening over RA3 hier maar niet gaan vertolken XD, hij kwam wel zo ineens uit de lucht vallen... als een bak stront met een strikje erom, maar das mijn mening

hype's creeeren verwachtingen, en blizzard is eigenlijk de enige developer die altijd de verwachtingen waar heeft gemaakt, ook al duurt het wat lang altijd voordat een game in de winkel ligt, maar juist daarom zijn het altijd van zulke perfecte complete games, ook al weet je dat bij D3 bijvoorbeeld zeker weten een expansion a la D2's LOD zal komen, ik hoop alleen dat ze die expansion niet te snel er achter aan uitbrengen

anyway, das voor latere zorg, eerst maar is dit bruut gave spel op mijn harde schijf krijgen

Haha heel mooi verwoord

Precies en daarom vind ik de hypes rondom blizzard games wel mooi. Sowieso is ook de info die je in de tussentijd krijgt prachtig om te lezen. Kan je je al helemaal lekker maken voor het echte werk.

[Dalyxia]

psychoclown schreef op maandag 03 november 2008 @ 13:09:
[...]

Klopt en het schijnt niks voor te stellen, tis dan maar goed ook anders krijg je van die crysis taferelen enzo.

[...]

Haha heel mooi verwoord

Precies en daarom vind ik de hypes rondom blizzard games wel mooi. Sowieso is ook de info die je in de tussentijd krijgt prachtig om te lezen. Kan je je al helemaal lekker maken voor het echte werk.

en aan de tussenpozes tussen de informatie die ze op de site zetten, kun je ook ongeveer schatten wanneer ze alle info op de site hebben... dat wordt zeker december 2009 ben ik bang

[Verwijderd]

Ah, zit me kostelijk te vermaken in Vietnam. Aangezien ik nu toch 1 uur op de bus moet wachten, en toch even wilde weten of Blizzard een updatetje gedaan had, ging ik net kijken op de site. Machtige Wizard, met d'r teleport skills! (Ik hoop dat het alleen bij dat character blijft)

Coole filmpjes weer, goed verhaallijn. Alleen weinig tijd of geen zin, om op je vakantie te gaan surfen naar informatie over Diablo 3.

Als Diablo 3 zou uitkomen, weet ik niet of ik voor de Wizard zou gaan. Aangezien ze in Diablo 3 vast en zeker, een aantal areas only-character doable gaan maken, denk ik niet dat in de hogere gebieden dat de Wizard erg machtig zal kunnen zijn, en meer de tankers nodig hebt. (Het moet een party-based game worden natuurlijk!)

Natuurlijk is de teleport skill onzettend handig om je party snel van plaats naar plaats te boosten. Maar ik zou dit niet willen bij mijn eerste gameplay. En daarom zou ik vast mogelijk kiezen voor een amazon, welke in het begin vrij zwak zal zijn, maar uiteindelijk monsterachtig sterk.

De tijd zal het leren, en ik probeer natuurlijk altijd op de hoogte te blijven! Maar jongens, jullie zouden nu ook eens in Vietnam moeten zijn .

Tollo en de rest: Is er een mogelijkheid, voordat Diablo 3 uitkomt en we alle info hebben, we een clan kunnen oprichten? =).

Verder: ik lach jullie allemaal hard uit, vanuit het zonnige vietnam ( 28 ) graden

[Dakreal]

Verwijderd schreef op donderdag 06 november 2008 @ 07:15:
Hele lap tekst met jaloersmakende berichten

Hmm, ik ga denk ik zelf voor de wizzard Ik speelde met d2 ook altijd met plezier een sorceress.
Wat is er in Vietnam te zien wat we hier in Nederland nog niet weten van d3 trouwens?

Hier in Nederland is het ook heeeeeerlijk weer.. 9 graden en regenachtig.. god i love these days

[Verwijderd]

Verwijderd schreef op donderdag 06 november 2008 @ 07:15:

Als Diablo 3 zou uitkomen, weet ik niet of ik voor de Wizard zou gaan. Aangezien ze in Diablo 3 vast en zeker, een aantal areas only-character doable gaan maken, denk ik niet dat in de hogere gebieden dat de Wizard erg machtig zal kunnen zijn, en meer de tankers nodig hebt. (Het moet een party-based game worden natuurlijk!)

Doe me een lol zeg... partybased..ieuw.. daar zijn al genoeg alternatieven voor. Het mooie van Diablo was/is juist dat je ook in je eentje een hoop fun kon beleven en alles in het spel kon doen. En daarbij meen ik ergens gelezen te hebben dat alle classes dikke dmg kunnen doen en de afhankelijkheid van een 'tank' nihil is.

[psychoclown]

SpoTs schreef op donderdag 06 november 2008 @ 10:14:
[...]


Hmm, ik ga denk ik zelf voor de wizzard Ik speelde met d2 ook altijd met plezier een sorceress.
Wat is er in Vietnam te zien wat we hier in Nederland nog niet weten van d3 trouwens?

Hier in Nederland is het ook heeeeeerlijk weer.. 9 graden en regenachtig.. god i love these days

Ja dat denk ik ook wel als eerste char al is het even afwachten wat de rest zal brengen natuurlijk!

Verwijderd schreef op donderdag 06 november 2008 @ 10:21:
[...]


Doe me een lol zeg... partybased..ieuw.. daar zijn al genoeg alternatieven voor. Het mooie van Diablo was/is juist dat je ook in je eentje een hoop fun kon beleven en alles in het spel kon doen. En daarbij meen ik ergens gelezen te hebben dat alle classes dikke dmg kunnen doen en de afhankelijkheid van een 'tank' nihil is.

Dan vraag ik me sterk af waar je dat gelezen heb, Jay wilson en het team wilden juist meer party gerichtheid.

[Verwijderd]

psychoclown schreef op donderdag 06 november 2008 @ 10:28:
[...]

Ja dat denk ik ook wel als eerste char al is het even afwachten wat de rest zal brengen natuurlijk!

[...]

Dan vraag ik me sterk af waar je dat gelezen heb, Jay wilson en het team wilden juist meer party gerichtheid.

Meer party gerichtheid prima, maar het hele heal/dps/tank principe zou, als ik het me goed herinneren niet in D3 voorkomen. Zal 's kijken of 't stuk waar ik naar refereerde nog kan vinden.

[psychoclown]

Verwijderd schreef op donderdag 06 november 2008 @ 10:31:
[...]


Meer party gerichtheid prima, maar het hele heal/dps/tank principe zou, als ik het me goed herinneren niet in D3 voorkomen. Zal 's kijken of 't stuk waar ik naar refereerde nog kan vinden.

Denk dat jij het potspamming bedoelt? Dat zit er idd niet meer in, zijn nog wel pots maar die droppen erg weinig en healen instantly. De healthglobes zijn overtime zoals de pots in d2.

[boe2]

Ieder personage kan perfect zelfstandig spelen, anders zou het geen Diablo game zijn natuurlijk

[psychoclown]

Boeboe schreef op donderdag 06 november 2008 @ 10:40:
Ieder personage kan perfect zelfstandig spelen, anders zou het geen Diablo game zijn natuurlijk

Zeg ook nergens dat ze dat niet kunnen, feit is wel dat ze meer partyplay wilden zien.

[Verwijderd]

Zou wel moeten anders kunnen ze niet eens een singleplayer toevoegen.
Het party gebeuren moet de game alleen maar leuker maken maar zal hopelijk niet verplicht zijn.
Als je dan net een boss aan het killen bent en je "tank" verlaat de game dan zou het opeens niet meer te killen zijn. Maar de game dificulty past zicht gewoon aan naar minders spelers en je kan gewoon door nuken.

[Verwijderd]

psychoclown schreef op donderdag 06 november 2008 @ 10:40:
[...]

Denk dat jij het potspamming bedoelt? Dat zit er idd niet meer in, zijn nog wel pots maar die droppen erg weinig en healen instantly. De healthglobes zijn overtime zoals de pots in d2.

Nee dat denk ik niet. Ik vind het de healthglobes eigenlijk wel positief. Denk dat dat er voor zorgt dat je toch iets voorzichtig speelt, ipv dat je met je een vinger op de 1 blijft rammen omdat daar de full rejuvs zitten
Onder partyplay in Diablo versta ik dat de mobs sterker worden, bij voorkeur ook meer mobs, zodat iedereen in je kickass party lekker kan rammen.

[Dakreal]

Verwijderd schreef op donderdag 06 november 2008 @ 10:55:
Zou wel moeten anders kunnen ze niet eens een singleplayer toevoegen.
Het party gebeuren moet de game alleen maar leuker maken maar zal hopelijk niet verplicht zijn.
Als je dan net een boss aan het killen bent en je "tank" verlaat de game dan zou het opeens niet meer te killen zijn. Maar de game dificulty past zicht gewoon aan naar minders spelers en je kan gewoon door nuken.

Deze informatie vooral het " bold " gedeelte is incorrect. De difficulty past zich idd aan, maar als een mob geladen is voor 8 spelers en er leaven er 4, dan is de mob nog steeds net zo moeilijk als voor 8 players. omgekeerd geld precies hetzelfde, als er 4 bij zijn als de mob geladen word en er joinen 4 spelers. Dan is de mob nog net zo sterk als voor 4 spelers.

[frankvdtillaart]

SpoTs schreef op donderdag 06 november 2008 @ 11:15:
[...]


Deze informatie vooral het " bold " gedeelte is incorrect. De difficulty past zich idd aan, maar als een mob geladen is voor 8 spelers en er leaven er 4, dan is de mob nog steeds net zo moeilijk als voor 8 players. omgekeerd geld precies hetzelfde, als er 4 bij zijn als de mob geladen word en er joinen 4 spelers. Dan is de mob nog net zo sterk als voor 4 spelers.

Diablo 2 of Diablo 3.

Er kunnen dingen aangepast worden!

[psychoclown]

RedSoniq schreef op donderdag 06 november 2008 @ 16:01:
[...]

Diablo 2 of Diablo 3.

Er kunnen dingen aangepast worden!

In dit geval praten ze over de functie in d2 maar zoals je zegt, wie weet werkt het wel anders in d3..
Dat kunnen we niet weten.. omg! kan niet wachten op meer info maar dat is er atm vrij weinig

[psychoclown]

Update:

Wizard Gameplay Report

Sorceress v2.0?

Though the Wizard was the new character announced at Blizzcon, there’s actually less to say about her (I’ll say “her” since the male wizard wasn’t enabled at Blizzcon.) play style than about the Barbarian or the Witch Doctor. Well, that’s not entirely true. There’s less to say since I assume everyone reading this has played a Sorceress in Diablo II, and if you’ve done that, the Diablo III wizard will feel immediately familiar, at least in the early game.

Sure, the wizard’s skills are different than the Sorceress’, especially at higher levels, but the general “feel” of the character is very Sorceress-like. That’s not because the D3 Sorc Wizard is an unimaginative or derivative character. She’s not a rip off of the Sorceress, it’s just that some similarities are inevitable given the game design. Both characters are fast moving, fast-casting, ranged-attacking, spell-hurling ranged-fighting mages who try to avoid melee range and who spend most of their early game struggling under a mana shortage (if played untwinked). Given that, they’re obviously going to be similar, especially in the early going before higher level spells and equipment allow them to play in more unique style.The Wizard in the Blizzcon build started out at level 6, with all of her skill points already assigned to a mixture of passive and active skills. There were more than six points assigned, to give players a variety of skills to use, and enough passive boosts to make them fairly effective. (And to make things a bit easier so new players could have fun killing, rather than spending most of their time restarting at the last checkpoint. Every wizard had all three active Tier 1 spells—Spectral Blade, Magic Missile, and Charged Bolt—with some of the supporting passive skills enabled as well. This is probably not how characters will be built in the real game, since specializing in one skill tree, with perhaps some low level passives from the others, looks like the best game build. (Unless respecs are easy enough that we’ll all level up with the most useful Tier 1 and 2 skills from any of the 3 skill trees, and then recycle those points into higher level skills in 1 tree when the time comes.)

Gameplay Style

The play style I found most effective with the Wizard was to basically treat her like a low level, twink-free, slightly more deadly version of the D2 Sorceress. The Wizard had a lot of destructive power, but was quite fragile and was more than able to kill herself. She’s got some pretty useful skills right off the bat, actives and passives, but they’re almost too useful, since they’re so fun to fire and they kill so effectively that you want to keep using them non-stop, and your mana pool is nowhere near deep enough to cash the checks your hunger for slaughter is writing.

The Wizard’s mana regeneration seemed much faster than a Sorc’s in D2, but it was even easier to use it all up in the first place. My Wizard had around 100 mana at level 6, and with my main skills (Spectral Blade and Magic Missile) costing (respectively) 7 and 8 mana per use, I found myself resorting to melee weapons every time I had enough health to risk it, in order to let my mana refill a bit. I never missed the ability to distribute my own attributes while playing with a Barbarian or Witch Doctor, but two minutes into the Wizard I wanted to start putting points into Energy Willpower, and two minutes after that I wanted to load up Vitality too, when I found myself almost dead, all the time, while retreating to gain space and mana to wipe out the pursuing skeletons in hopes that they’d cough up some health globes. I don’t know what good strength and dexterity were doing my Wizard, but it wasn’t anywhere near as much good as more health and mana would have done her.

My first game with the Wizard was the hardest, since I joined a multiplayer game (there were 4 machines in the press room, linked up in a LAN to allow MP or SP, though most people chose SP). It’s not known just how much monster hit points and density and level size are modified by more players in a game, but it sure felt harder, and the levels seemed bigger, than when I played later, in a single player game. I can’t make a very good comparison though, since my first Wizard game was my only multiplayer game, and it was the first time I’d ever touched Diablo III. I played a Wizard again the next day, and had much less trouble keeping up her mana, clearing out the dungeons, and eventually defeating the Skeleton King.

It was fun both times. Fun for the novelty the first time, plus the constant near death(s) and struggle for mana and health orbs kept me alert. The next time I played I was alone, more experienced at the game, and I engaged in a more methodical massacre of the dungeon hordes. I needed to retreat far less often, and I wasn’t constantly emerging from crazy, retreating, running, spell-throwing battles with no more than a a sliver of health. The multiplayer game was further complicated by the fact that the other people in it had no idea what they were doing, and kept standing motionless and laughing as they got killed, or casting spells at the walls, or (harmlessly) at me, or simply looking over their equipment and skills instead of fighting. Worse, they were all playing Wizards, so they couldn’t even tank very well. At least if they’d played Barbarians they would have lasted a few seconds longer before each death.

The hardest monsters, or at least the ones that dealt by far the most damage to me, were ranged attackers. I could blast or outrun or chill most melee attackers, (mana permitting), but the ranged attackers were nastier, since they’d always get in a shot or two before I could take them out (this changed somewhat when I got better with Disintegrate). This wouldn’t have meant a thing in D2, since I’d just have sucked down a potion, but in D3 there are no potions to buy, they drop very rarely, characters don’t regenerate hit points right from the start, and therefore, all of those little bits of damage added up. I don’t know if it was true or just my perception, but ranged attackers seemed to drop health globes much less often than melee mobs. As a result the archers were almost always a net loss in hit points, one that I had to overcome with health dropped by the melee monsters, who were easier to kill without being injured by, but who did a lot more damage when they did get a paw on me.

My Blizzcon Wizard play can really be described as a tale of two games. The first was chaotic and funny and frustrating, but quite memorable. The second was much easier and more successful, but far less difficult. In that one I played systematically, only advancing as much as I had to to draw some monsters into sight. I’d the retreat, or hold my ground while blasting them, and take time to look at the items they dropped. Which gave my mana time to regenerate. I had an easy enough time that when I got to the Skeleton King, I ran a few extra laps around his multi-level throne room area, blasting away at his hordes of skeleton minions and taking pot shots at him, just to prolong the fun. Eventually I killed him by experimenting with Disintegrate and trying to judge if the damage actually did increase the longer I held the beam on the same target. (Results = inconclusive.)

Items

Sadly, I don’t have a lot to say about these, since they were pretty much optional for the Wizard. All the low level armor was equivalent to what we’re all familiar with from D2. Blue (magical) gear with minor bonuses to attributes, mana, life, and so forth. I never saw any jewelry in the Blizzcon build (not enabled or the monsters weren’t high enough level to drop it), and since I wasn’t taking many hits (or at least trying not to) with my wizard, I wasn’t much worried about defense or defensive bonuses on armor.

I did find a few nifty wands and other light weapons, with useful mods. As was the case with my Witch Doctor, I found weapons with +% experience gain (around 11%) and +% experience gain (7 or 8%). Those didn’t greatly change the gameplay, but I did notice the improved damage, once I had it. Eventually (D2 style) my Wizard transitioned to magic find equipment, and while the % I had from boots, shield, and chest armor with MF on it wasn’t more than about 40%, it did seem to increase the number of rares I found. Not greatly, and not to my benefit, since I kept wearing the magic items I had found earlier, but it was fun to see more shinies drop.
I didn’t find any uniques with the Wizard, nor any of the crystal ball-looking items she uses in the Blizzcon gameplay and most of her screenshots; I assume those are a higher level item type. I ended up using odd weapons; wands and clubs and short swords and the like, based entirely on their magical bonuses. And they served well enough.

Tier 1 Skills

Spectral Blade is not a good skill to start off with, because it refutes my opening analogy—there aren’t any Sorceress skills like this one. That small point aside, Spectral Blade is a magical attack that deals physical damage to enemies very near the Sorceress. The skill creates a lattice of straight lines of power that overlap like a half dozen toothpicks tossed down in a heap. It’s got a cool, sword-slashing sound to go with it, and can be seen (and heard) repeatedly in the Sorceress game play movies from Blizzcon. The skill hits each enemy in front of the Wizard up to three times, dealing 1-5 damage.

Using this skill is almost like using Bash, or Cleave, or some melee Barbarian attack, if those skills had extra range. Spectral Blade hits enemies at melee range, but can also nail them a yard or two distant, though it seemed like the multiple hits of damage were more likely to occur if the monster was right in front of you, where the lines overlapped. The initial temptation is to use this skill against anything that can be hit by it, but after a bit of practice (and a lot of running out of mana) I realized that it was more effective if I aimed it. So I started letting the monsters get into range, and tried to position myself so that I had several zombies in a bunch, where each slash of the Spectral Blade would have a chance to hit all of them more than once. This immediately cut my mana use since I was using the spell less often, and it was more fun to use it that way. It became a bit of a challenge to try to take out zombies or skeletons in one Spectral Blade, instead of 2 or 3. Especially when I had a couple of them overlapping.

I was not able to use it enough to figure out just what the odds of getting multiple hits were, or if they could all hit even when there were multiple enemies in the target zone, since the damage can vary so much. Spectral Blade can deal 1-5 damage with 1-3 hits, so I could do 1-15 damage with each use of it. Plus, since all 3 hits were added up and dealt at once, there was no way to tell if I’d landed 1, 2, or 3, especially since 3 hits might only do 3 or 4 damage, while a single hit could do 5. Still, it was a fun skill to use, and the multiple hits to multiple targets over a larger-than-melee range made it fun to play with. I enjoyed using it in crowds and watching multiple enemies take hits.

It’s not a spell that can be used machine gun style though, even if enemies are in range. There’s a short delay after each cast, a cool down that’s longer than the Wizard has with her projectile spells. As a result Spectral Blade doesn’t look like a real boss-killer. It also didn’t seem to stun or interrupt the attacking motion of monsters, the way melee attacks sometimes did, so it’s not a way to render targets helpless while you slash them to bits.

Magic Missile is the Tier 1 active skill from the Arcane Skill Tree. It’s a lot less interesting and complicated than Spectral Blade. Magic Missile is basically a Firebolt that deals Arcane Damage. Using this skill fires a small purple projectile that moves across the screen in a straight line and at a fairly fast pace, and it can be cast repeatedly without any cool down time. . Firebolt like, as I said. It deals 7-15 damage, which seems like a lot compared to Spectral Blade’s 1-5, but not when you realize that Spectral can hit up to 3 times, that it costs 1 less mana, that it’s very unlikely to miss entirely, that it can hit multiple targets at once, and that it’s got a slower casting rate, thus making it less mana expensive, whether you like it or not.

At low levels against basic monsters, MM is just a simple projectile. It’s got some interesting properties later on though, since each point you place in the Tier 3 skill Improved Magic Missile adds 1 to the number of missiles fired, and increases the damage of each by 8%. (You can also add to the number of shots, their damage, and more, with Skill Runes.) Improved Magic Missile was too high level to be used at Blizzcon, but Wizards have been seen firing multiple Magic Missiles in screenshots and gameplay movies, and the projectiles seem to be aimed like Multishot, or the Necromancer’s Teeth; they spread out more or less, depending on how far away from your character you aim when you click them. Furthermore, it looks like multiple Magic Missiles can hit a single target, which could keep this one useful even late in the game, if fired at point blank range.

A last property of Magic Missile comes from its damage type. Arcane is a new type of damage in D3, and critical hits scored with Arcane Damage “silence” monsters for 4 seconds. This property hasn’t been explained yet, but the consensus is that a silenced monster will be unable to use some of its spells, such as Skeletal Mages losing the ability to resurrect their slain minions.

Charged Bolt is the third Tier 1 skill, this one from the Storm Skill Tree. Charged Bolt has been featured in Diablo I and Diablo II, and I’m sure everyone is familiar with it by now. Three little crackling bits of lightning are sent forth along the ground, where they zig and zag a bit, but move in a more or less straight line away from the Sorceress. I didn’t use this spell much, but it seemed to me that the bolts spread out quite a bit more than they did in D2, and that made it hard to hit anything in front of me with more than one bolt. That’s now how it looks in screenshots though, where the bolts seem to carpet the dungeon floor quite nicely. More testing will be required.

As soon as a Wizard leveled up, she earned a skill point, with all of the Tier 2 skills were available. The Tier 1 skills were open as well, but since Active skills could only get 1 point in the Blizzcon build, there were only passive skills to put that point into, on the first tier. I doubt that too many people at Blizzcon spent their points on skills like Arcane Power out of their great eagerness to add 12% more damage to all of their Arcane skills. (Not that that would have necessarily been a bad strategy, but most players were eager to see and try out the other active skills, not to incrementally boost their existing ones.)

In Tier 2, players could choose from:

* Arcane Skills: Disintegrate and Wave of Force.
* Storm Skills: Frost Nova and Storm Armor.
* Conjuring Skills: Stone Skin and Mirror Image.

Disintegrate was the the most fun, or at least most talked about, Wizard skill from Blizzcon. Virtually everyone put a point into Disintegrate, either because they liked the name, or because they’d seen someone else using that red laser of death, and wanted to try it themselves. (I feel into the later camp.) Disintegrate has been featured in a variety of screenshots; the straight red laser line it emits is hard to mistake. When using this skill, the Sorceress emits a laser-like beam of red energy that passes through multiple targets, dealing progressively less damage to each. What makes it so distinctive is that it stays active as long as you depress the mouse button (and have enough mana), and that it can be aimed like a beam weapon and swept from side to side. It’s indisputably fun to stand there and basically hose down every enemy in sight, without moving a step.

What makes the spell so effective is not the damage, which is fairly low. (It deals 10 damage per second.) It’s the speed, since unlike every other Wizard skill (and every Sorceress skill) this one moves at the speed of light. The instant you click the mouse, Disintegrate is hitting things at the edge of the screen. The damage is lessened by each monster it passes through, but in practice (at least in the early going) this just means it can kill everything you shoot at in 5 seconds. The ones in front die in 2 seconds, and as soon as they’re down the damage increases to the ones behind them.

Disintegrate is most effective against weaker enemies in bunches, and especially against ranged attackers at the far edge of the screen. I constantly found skeletal archers at the edge of the screen, and used Disintegrate to obliterate them before they could do more than get off a single shot at me. Killing them with say, Magic Missile, would have taken much longer. I would have had to cast half a dozen missiles, they would have had to fly all the way across the screen, monsters in the way would have absorbed some of them, and all that while the archers would have been firing at me. Thus Disintegrate isn’t hugely damaging, but it saves you a great deal of time and damage by instantly wiping out low hit point enemies from a distance.

On the other hand, Disintegrate was not very effective against larger targets. Bosses or big monsters were hurt by it, but not nearly as badly as other spells hurt them. It’s said that Disintegrate increases in damage the longer it’s trained on the same enemy. I was never able to test that out (it killed all the small stuff and ranged attackers too quickly), and it’s not listed in the spell’s hover description, but even if it’s true, it’s hard to use this spell for that purpose when you’re playing alone. Big monsters don’t stand back and let you fry them; they rush up to attack you, and up close Spectral Blade or Magic Missile did far more damage than Disintegrate. I don’t think Disintegrate would be a great choice against a powerful ranged enemy either, such as a boss pack of archers, since while it would be useful to kill them, you have to stand still while you’re using it, and their arrows would pin cushion you in the meantime.

That’s one of the most interesting things about using Disintegrate; that it’s more effective if you’re not moving. But Wizards seldom have that luxury, at least not when they’re playing alone. A solo wizard is a hit and run machine, throwing magical projectiles, rushing back or to the sides to dodge returned fire, darting in to land a few Spectral Blade strikes, etc. Disintegrate looks like it’ll be very useful against weak, ranged attackers, or else will be best used in a multiplayer game, when some other character is up front tanking, giving the Wizard the freedom to pour this one on non-stop.

Wave of Force is the other Tier 2 active spell from the Arcane Tree. Sadly, I never used it, since it’s basically a defensive skill that wasn’t needed in the Blizzcon Demo. It’s demonstrated in the Blizzcon gameplay movies though, and looks pretty fun. Wave of Force casts a nova-like ring of energy that blasts out from the Wizard, shoving back enemies and reflecting projectiles towards their source. The possibilities created when teaming this with Slow Time are fun to contemplate.

The Storm Tree also has two active skills in Tier 2. Frost Nova is pretty much the same skill it was in D2, but with vastly improved graphics. Instead of just a ring of frost, it now sends out a gaseous ring that’s speckled with dozens of shooting, snowball-like projectiles. As it was in D2, the skill is not very damaging and is best used for defensive purposes, a fact that’s reinforced by the eternity of a 12 second cool down it’s saddled with.
Storm Armor sounds pointless, since no one was bothering much with defensive skills at Blizzcon; not in the short time we had to play, and the small dungeon we had to clear out. I didn’t test out this one, but it sounds like a fairly interesting skill. It’s somewhat misleading in name, since the description doesn’t mention any defensive properties; just that it fires out lightning bolts at nearby enemies. Sort of a short range, low-level Thunder Storm?

The last two active skills available in the Blizzcon demo came from Tier 2 of the Conjuring Tree. Stone Skin reuses the name of a Barbarian skill from D2, but doesn’t work the same way. It’s an active skill that mimics the D2 Necromancer’s Bone Armor in function; absorbing 30 points of (physical?) damage at level one.

Mirror Image is a skill that, in retrospect, I really wish I’d tried out. The description does nothing to encourage experimentation, “Create an illusionary duplicate of yourself.” It sounds like a boring reuse of the Amazon’s Decoy skill, but from what’s been shown in the gameplay movie, it’s closer to the Assassin’s Shadow Master. Using this skill creates one (more with the help of skill runes) duplicate of the Wizard, who can use spells and fight alongside you. Five duplicates are shown being cast (at once) in the gameplay movie, and other skills address the hit points and duration of the Mirror Images, so presumably they’ll last for some time, and are able to survive some damage.

Conclusion

I enjoyed the Wizard the most of the three characters available in the Blizzcon build. That’s no guarantee of long term fun though, since the characters are kind of apples to pomegranates at low levels.I enjoyed Barbarians in D2, but not until level 24, or 30, or really, 60ish. Late game Barbarians were a lot of fun, with powerful, fast skills, good equipment, etc. I found them very tedious early on, when they could do nothing but swing swing swing single-target, melee style. I wasn’t bored with the D3 barbarian, but he’s pretty much the same thing, early on (though at least his “early on” wouldn’t last until level 30, as it did in D2). The Witch Doctor was fun at Blizzcon, but like the Barbarian, that character is only scratching the surface of her long term abilities at level 8 or 9. One kind of minion, a few fun starter attack skills, but little more.

The Wizard, on the other hand, is just dripping with coolness right from the start. She only had Tier 1 and 2 skills available, but there were 9 active skills to choose from at those levels, and only one or two of them were just some defensive, “use me to succeed in utilitarian fashion.” The rest were all shiny, multi-colored, widely-varied types of attack spell, and all of them were fun to use. So of course the Wizard is the most fun character at this point (in most player’s opinions). How true that would be if we’d gotten to play them to level 20, or 30, or 50, remains to be seen. The Blizzard guys have played much more of the game, and they report a variety of favorite characters, so it’s not like everyone likes the Wizard best and they’re just putting in the others to flesh out the character selection screen.

That said, I did enjoy playing the Wizard most of the 3 characters in the Blizzcon build. She was fast, destructive, varied in her attacks, strong but not overpowered, and just generally a lot of fun to play. As Jay Wilson keeps saying during panels, “Everyone likes blowing stuff up.”

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