I’ve added four more jigsaw images from Diablo 2, showing off large, map-style overhead views of various non-random areas. This batch includes Durance 3, the Act 1 item fun of the Pit 2, and the Ice Dungeon located below all the Ice Cave levels in Act 5. Click to see them in their full, poster-sized glory, and get an overview of the game you never have while playing. View the full gallery for lots more.

Note the top right image; it’s a closeup of the blood moat on the Durance of Hate: Level 3. You’ve probably raced through there hundreds of times on Meph runs, but did you ever notice what shape the blood moat formed? Nice little Easter Egg there…

   

 

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Shacknews has posted a nice little article that writes up Rob Pardo‘s talk at the Game Developer’s Convention.  Rob’s presentation covered how Blizzard learns from their mistakes and applies those lessons to future games. He mentioned the failure of Diablo 2’s gold economy, and how they improved upon that system in WoW. He mentioned how the hero units in Starcraft’s SP missions (same as War2’s) were too risky to use in large battles and how they improved on that system in Warcraft III. Another example concerned quests and story integration, and I’ll quote that bit below:

In storytelling, Diablo II quests and the World of Warcraft quest “The Green Hills of Stranglethorn” were failures. In Diablo II, quest NPC’s would speak for around 2 minutes giving backstory and details about a quest that just ended up sending the player off to kill a demon. Everybody skipped them. In the WoW quest, players were meant to slowly collect quest items that would drop randomly off of any enemy in a particular zone, but it was too slow. Players just bought the missing items from the auction house.

For success, Pardo identified the “Culling of Stratholme” from Warcraft III and the Death Knight starting area from World of Warcraft’s Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Both presented the player with story content during gameplay instead of frontloading the content with tedious briefings. The Death Knight area also served as a playable tutorial for the new class that was introduced in the second WoW expansion.

I couldn’t help but notice that both Diablo 2 examples were things the game didn’t do very well, that were improved upon in WoW. Let’s hope we see some improvement examples in D3, whether improved over D2, WoW or something else…

On that theme, criticizing D2 for the end game economy and over-long NPC dialogues is pretty much shooting fish in a barrel. What other examples can you guys think of for major D2 features that weren’t implemented as well as they could be; that you hope to see improved in Diablo III? 

On the other hand, what did Diablo 2 do right? The virtual slot machine that is the D2 item drop is widely praised as an addictive game mechanic, and it’s something the D3 Team has said they want to recreate as best they can. What other features or design approaches from D2 do you hope to see return in D3?

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Bashiok added a few replies to an ongoing class-specific weapons thread, and posted some great news about Diablo 3’s overall progress. 

First, here’s what he added on class specific weapons. (See the start of this thread from two days ago.)

	Blizzard Quote:
	I think it’s jumping to an extreme conclusion to say that a few weapon restrictions will ruin build and experimentation variety (ok being fair I know you’re not quite claiming “ruin” but…). If it ruins build experimentation and variety then we’ll fix it. But I think it is accurate to say that weapon restrictions will encourage trading, but more accurately to the reasons we present - build a sense of immersion with who these heroes are and the character that shows through every aspect of the way they’re presented and behave. I’m not sure barbs running around dual wielding wands is emergent gameplay we want to stomach. Or that makes anyone playing think “That’s awesome! This game is awesome!” no, you’re going to see a 9-foot tall behemoth running around shooting magic out of little sticks. That’s not what a barbarian should be doing, build potential or not. You say it will lower the amount of possibilities of outfitting a character, and that’s obviously true, but we don’t feel that the possibilities lost are so vast and substantial as to hurt character customization. If it does, we’ll fix it. We’re not going to put out a game that has poor character customization because we don’t like the idea of wizards running around dual wielding axes. If that makes character build potential severely limited, that’s fine, we were wrong and we’ll fix it. I don’t think we’ll be wrong though. ...That’s cool. Well selectively quoting the parts of my posts that allow you to continue your point is wearing a little thin, so, I’m done here.

Bashiok replied several more times, but just to say why he wasn’t going to keep rewording the same argument over and over again. Check the original thread if you want to wade through that; I don’t recommend it, since there was zero D3 info imparted.

Elsewhere, Bashiok replied with some confusion to an awful comparison shot of two outdated Diablo 3 skill tree interfaces. I included that below the fold, since it’s fairly worthless. What was not worthless was his digression into good news about Diablo 3’s overall progress.

	Blizzard Quote:
	...I was in a horrible mood all day but just got out of one of the fairly regular milestone-esque “here’s what the team has accomplished the past few weeks”. And it blew me away. Sometimes there’s a new monster or something that’s awesome, but this time it was just the realization of how things are getting checked off at a constant pace. They are churning away like mad men (and women). Got to see some of the runed skill effects for the first time, and it’s going to be an awesome system.

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Speculation, crazed predictions, and pictures that must constantly get checked over by admin. It’s another Slab. This week I examine the male Wizard with yet another revelation at the end. The first paragraph is below. Click through to read the rest.

Wizard of the Stars part II

I was just about to interact with the hangout demons of the OT Forum when Blizzard struck again by releasing the male Wizard model. I will have to save this bottle of sparkling Henkell Trocken for next week. For now, let us do a high dive into a swimming pool of tech—er, magic. You may recall my Wizard of the Stars discussion last September hypothesized about the true purpose of the female Wizard. She was all about personifying science fiction themes and play styles. Why? Well, to lure in those science fiction fans in danger of buying Star Trek Online 2 instead of Diablo 3 when they both come out. Can you blame Blizzard for trying to set things right? Well, Blizzard confirmed my hunch last week by releasing a male Wizard who looks like Optimus Prime! But one other prediction I made that became strange but true was that the Wizard, male, female or whatever, would end up with the best and toughest armor out of all the heroes.
 
I know, it’s weird.

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Max Schaefer of Runic Games (and formerly of Blizzard North) mentioned in a new podcast that the Torchlight developers are working on porting their recent dungeon crawler over to consoles. This isn’t exactly earth-shaking news, but since every article about Torchlight is contractually-obligated to include some sort of Diablo 3 parallel, Mtv’s gaming blog and The Escapist did just that.

“We’re going to put some serious effort into it - pretty quick - getting Torchlight onto consoles,” Runic Games CEO Max Schaefer told The Rumble Pack. “There’s a lot of really cool things about the console world, too, that would work well with our game.”

The sentiment is certainly appreciated, as is the idea of a larger console audience getting to experience the loot-driven pure that is Torchlight. More people getting to experience an awesome game - what’s bad about that? But it isn’t like there aren’t difficulties with the idea: Torchlight, like Diablo, is very heavily based around rapid-fire clicking with the mouse to attack, use abilities, and pick up all the loot the drops. It’s not impossible to imagine that the system could be adapted to consoles, but controllers are just inherently less precise than computer mice for that sort of thing.

Still, if Runic pulls it off, it might encourage Blizzard to do the same for Diablo III. And wouldn’t that be awesome? Unlike RTS games, ARPGs are one of the primarily-PC genres that could potentially be viable on consoles.

This issue has come up before, and been greeted with very mixed feelings. For every fan who would like to play Diablo on their Xbox or PS3, one (or more) lament the possibility, generally in terms of an onslaught of foul-mouthed, immature TV-gaming kiddies, driving the rest of us to insta-mute all other players in every Battle.net game.  What’s your take? D3 on consoles; good or bad?

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CVG has posted a new interview with Blizzard Composer Russell Brower. Russel is chiefly responsible for the music of World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, and Diablo 3, and while the interview concentrates on WoW, there are some questions about the other two games as well.

	Blizzard Quote:
	CVG: What about Diablo III? Is that dark, brooding affair - again, how do you make sure it doesn’t distract or overpower the gameplay? Russell: It’s a little early to talk about it, but I’ll say this: The music in Diablo I, II and the expansion is some of the most iconic music in video game history. We have a huge guidepost there and we’re not going to violate that. Diablo III’s story and gameplay expands into new areas as the game unfolds, and you’ll hear us going bigger and going wider [with the music]. We’ll take each scene as it comes and find a way to approach it. If the music was to ever overpower, to bring too much attention to itself, it’s probably not doing the job that it should.

This issue comes up in discussion from time to time, and the conversation is usually hijacked by people who assert that only Rammstein (or whoever) is appropriate to listen to while killing digital demons. But I’ll ask anyway—how important is the game music to you guys?  Do you listen to it? Will you listen to it in Diablo 3? Does anyone play without any music at all? If you play your own, do you match it thematically to the game, or just play whatever your current favorite is?

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Bashiok stopped by the forums this afternoon and took time to do some point by point explanations about why the Diablo 3 classes can only use (and not use) certain weapons. He includes some shocking news; they’re ahead of schedule on some aspects of the game! The posts he’s replying to are in white; his comments are in blue, and I’ve added links to various wiki pages with relevant information and additional D3 Team quotes on the issues.

	Blizzard Quote:
	“Artists can’t render that many animations” is a bogus excuse.” Bashiok: I don’t think we’ve ever put that forward as the main excuse, but… well, it is the main excuse. It’s not bogus though it’s absolutely a true and real situation. Animation takes time. There are schedules and we have to try to set realistic goals for what we can achieve so we can try to get this game out sometime before we die of old age. As if there wasn’t already a very talented art team at work with lots of time, theres the simple moddability of a replaceable animation; you can have swinging, stabbing, etc and attach the weapon models in there. Thats basic stuff. Bashiok: You’re dismissively downplaying the amount of work needed to animate every weapon type. It’s important to note that we aren’t going to just slap on animations. We’ll do it right or we won’t do it. There is some overlap in weapon animations, but generally every weapon needs a full range of adaptation to the character. We can’t animate a 1h sword and then equip a 1h axe and be happy with it being wielded in the same manner. In addition we don’t want weapons disappearing whenever the hero does anything but a basic attack, so they have to be animated into emotes, idles, and a lot of skills and abilities. Every weapon. Some people noticed weapons disappear during some of the monk abilities. We don’t like that. Most of that was due to time constraints to get that demo finished. Again there is some overlap - staves share a lot of the same animation with the other 2h weapons, but to dismiss it as “just animate it and slap it on and it works!” is seriously oversimplifying our processes. Maybe some other games do it that way. Good news is that animation seems to be ahead of schedule, so we’re working on a new definition of restrictions that’s based more on class flavor than anything else. (Didn’t I just post about this?) For instance we don’t want anyone but the barbarian or monk dual-wielding, we don’t want anyone but the Witch Doctor or wizard using wands, we don’t want anyone but the wizard to wield orbs, fist weapons will probably only be usable by the monk, etc. etc. but other than for flavor reasons most of the restrictions are being removed. All subject to change of course. Thanks for your reply and attempting to explain things. Forgive me, though, but I’m not seeing your point. This would have made sense back in the days of D1 and D2 where they had to pre-render sprite combinations. But D3 uses 3D characters. You’ve got a 3D model for a sword, and a 3D model for a character…and the character is driven by bones and/or hierartchical transforms…so the only thing needed to make a character wield a weapon is the animation keys. Using modern tools such as MotionBuilder, defining a custom animation like this could be done quickly in minutes/hours…especially if you already have a base to work with, such as mocap data, or a previously made animation for a different character which just needs to be tweaked. So I really cannot buy this as a legitimate excuse. Not in this day and age. Bashiok: There are approximately 30 animations for every weapon type, for every class, for both genders. Now granted again there is some overlap but not to a degree that makes animation inconsequential. And to reiterate, we’re not going to slap things on and call it done. It’s true that we could take a stave animation for the wizard and make some minor tweaks and tah-dah, 2h swords work now. But there’s a process to each weapon. The animation team meets and determines how the class would wield a specific weapon, what their character imparts to the feeling and tone of the animations, and that the tone is consistent through the character. The animations tell a story about who this person is and what they’re capable of. Like, whoa…whoa…whoa….a shield is not a class specific item. A shield is something that any sane person would carry into battle, regardless of gender or class…and it’s quite an unreasonable restriction if you ask me. Bashiok: Bruce Lee would not use a shield, and neither would the monk. lol, really? I thought this is Blizzard. Bashiok: Being willing to take as much time as necessary is not the same as working without a plan.

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A few updates from the ‘mothership’ that might interest you. Firstly, the latest IncGamers podcast, recorded this afternoon, has just gone online. News and gossip from the gaming world this week from the team (Andy is off covering GDC so Tamer is this week’s host) and of course banter and backchat.

Jeff Hollis’ MMO Weekly discusses his “Life as an undesirable girl”. Normally opting for a burly smashy-smashy character he experimented by creating female characters in the MMOs he’s currently playing to see what life was like from a different angle.

Belinda Vaughan’s weekly column examines the rise of free to play MMOs and the recent shift of some MMOs from subscriber-based to FTP and what this signifies for the genre.

Lastly, take a gander at our video interview with Dragon Age producer, Fernando Melo, who discusses the richness of the game and how that has the makings of an MMO. If you’re a Dragon Age fan that is going to be good news no doubt.

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Greetings all and welcome to next installment of the Fan Art Watch. This week we show off some more fan art from the D1/D2 gallery and D3 gallery. Lets take a look and what we have.


We begin in the Diablo1/2 gallery with a piece by Broken-Orange called Fireball. This fan art shows amazing details in the diablo 2 Sorceress as she blasts away at a Goatman on her way to Mt. Arreat.


Wrapping things up this week we go to the Diablo 3 gallery and a piece by Justanian84 for The Wizard. The male wizard looks battle ready to blast away any monsters that are coming his way.




Click the thumbnails to see larger versions of all these images.


If you enjoy Fan art and want to contribute to this growing community, please stop by the Fan Creations Forum. Many artists visit frequently, posting works in progress looking for feedback and conversation. You don't have to be "arty" to join in. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to send me a PM.

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Bashiok has made a few quick forum posts this afternoon.

In the first, a fan asked if we’ll see shields in Diablo 3, and Bashiok confirms that yes, all the classes (including the 5th, apparently) will be able to use shields. With one exception.

	Blizzard Quote:
	We have shields. Everyone but monk can wield them. Of course that’s subject to change.

This seemed like a silly question when I read it, since I saw plenty of shields drop while playing at Blizzcon the last two years, but after searching the screenshots and character art, I realized that we’ve never only seen one character using a shield in a screenshot, but never in a piece of concept art. (Monsters and NPCs aside.)

There are doDozens of Barbarian dual wielding art and screens, but only once with a shield. Interesting, that; Barbarians are always showing off huge weapons in their concept art, Wizards and Witch Doctors are lightly-armored and magical, and Monks can’t use shields at all.

It’s (almost) enough to make you wonder if the fifth character will have some kind of sword/shield mode, in addition to/instead of being a bow/ranged weapon master? (Sadly, the lack of a weapon switch hotkey in Diablo 3 rules out this sort of character design/variety.)


A fan suggests a major healing spell for each class, with some examples. Bashiok explains (again) why that’s not the way of character design in the Diablo games.

	Blizzard Quote:
	Spells, auras, abilities that buff, help, directly or indirectly heal yourself and party members, these are all good mechanics to helping cooperation in multiplayer games. And we’ll certainly have some of them. What we don’t want though is a situation where you’d say “Ok just sit back and keep us healed.” Everyone should be fighting, everyone should be DPS, and the buffs and bonuses that come from certain classes should simply be situational and/or beneficial “icing on the cake”.

A fan asks if a zookeeper type build will be viable for the Witch Doctor, and gets Bashiok to say why not, while sharing some useful info on little-documented spell Fetish Army.

	Blizzard Quote:
	Fetish army is really the only mass-summon spell the witch doctor has. The fetish army spell effects are coming along too, it’s looking pretty amazing. But it’s really more of an AoE that happens to do its damage by sending out little dudes to fight. The witch doctor is more about using a small number of summons as damage soaks, and then casting spells for the majority of his damage. Some of which are themselves larger one-off summons. He’s not a mass summoner, that’s just not the intended flavor of the class.

Finally, someone confuses Wang Wei’s (Glowei) personal art with Diablo 3 concept art, and asks if we’ll see the fifth class announced soon. Not so much. (Next class reveal won’t be until Blizzcon, which will probably be in the Aug-Sept-Oct area. Patience is advised, as always.)

	Blizzard Quote:
	Fifth class is Hellboy! You’re not going to find anything in Wei’s personal work. Sorry guys.

Update: Thanks to PrinceofThieves for pointing out the one screenshot with a shield in use. Image added above.

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