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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

In this, the second installment of Upon Closer Inspection (which may be retitled if we can think of something less pretentious and catchier) we’re going to analyze a mysterious tower-like structure that’s been seen in several pieces of character concept art.  You can see a close-up of it to the right, from a piece of Barbarian artwork. It’s a tower, or at least some sort of cube-shaped castle, with what looks like steep stairways carved into the sides, up (or down?) which hundreds of people with torches are rushing.

That’s kind of odd, but what makes this bit of background art worthy of closer notice is the fact that it turns up in several different images. It’s seen in two pieces of Barbarian art, with a much larger view in one of them, and it’s in a piece of Monk artwork, drawn from an entirely different angle/perspective.

A background image that shows up that often seems a good bed to be more than just decoration. Will this tower show up in the game? Is it related to the plot? Could be…

Click through to read the rest, and see all of the tower images in a larger size.

SonsoftheStorm.com, a website run by and for Blizzard artists, has welcomed a new “son” and added a heaping helping of his awesome artwork. The artist goes by Glowei, and as you can see on his artist page, he’s done great work for all three (revealed) Blizzard game worlds, and has posted quite a bit of personal artwork as well.

There are five images in the Diablo section, and while none of them are “new” in terms of “never before seen,” we previously had only photos or low quality versions of all four pieces of Diablo 3 character art. The fifth piece is a lovely rendition of the Diablo 2 version of Big Red, which has been used for page headers on Blizzard’s site, but I hadn’t previously seen it full size and quality.

While you’re looking, do check out Glowei’s Starcraft and Warcraft images, and the personal stuff as well. I actually found those the most interest, since there’s such a variety of work to be seen. It’s almost a pity they’re so organized, since if these pictures were not clearly labeled as Personal, we could have had a lot of fun speculating about what they were hinting at for Diablo 3! Archer character? Hybrid Archer? Female Swordsman? New Necromancer? Female Necromancer? Asian Necromancer? Male Wizard?  Monster concept art?

Click the images to see the shots full sized. Thanks to KLS for the tip.

     

Brother Laz returns with a new installment of his Mad Prophecies. In this one he’s dialed down the snark and is speaking more seriously about skill trees, the user interface, and other features today’s gamer expects from a modern (so to speak) RPG. Since the “skill” required to succeed at a game like Diablo 2 is primarily knowing which builds to use, which items to use, and where best to find them, will there be any “skill” required in D3 with respecs, improved skill trees, etc?

Here’s the start of the column; click through to read the whole thing.

Mad Prophecies #4: Streamlining out the Skill

Finally a new column. Better late than never, I suppose.

During my long slumber between Mad Prophecies #3 and today, I discovered the new Moba games: Heroes of Newerth and League of Legends. Aside from being PvP and therefore more entertaining than the depressing AI implemented by every action RPG so far, the constantly changing circumstances mean that there is no single best build for any given hero.

The action RPG genre suddenly seems quite old: the massive skill trees and item pools consisting mostly of useless options… the importance of numbers and bug awareness… the lack of interesting tactics against a weak computer enemy… Diablo 2 was revolutionary in its time, but this was the time of the wicked Pentium III gaming rig with an entire gigahertz of pulse-pounding clock speed. Today? Not so much. But neither is Starcraft or Dota at this point. Yet both games are being remade and successfully so. Can Diablo pull it off as well?

With the male wizard feedback in, it’s time for a new vote, and we’re staying with a character theme for this one too. Based on what you’ve seen of the characters thus far, which are you most interested in playing? If you had the game in your hands now, or at least a Blizzcon-style demo, who would you sink your time into?  Obviously we don’t know everything about the characters, and your opinions may change once the fifth character is revealed (at Blizzcon later this year?) or more info is released about the initial four, but for now, which way are you leaning?

Should you need some more info to make your choice, here you are: Barbarian, Monk, Witch Doctor, Wizard, Fifth Character.

Last Vote Results

The controversy and disagreement over the look of the male Wizard was reflected in the vote, with divergent opinions. The five choices actually formed up into fairly neat groups. Nearly tied for the most votes were the second more like and second most dislike. Following them nearly tied for third were the love and hate options, with the middle ground of no opinion a distant 5th. The male Wizard doesn’t quite a “love him or hate him” character style, but he’s certainly got the “strongly like or dislike” reaction sewn up.

What do you think of the look of the Male Wizard?
• 2) It’s good, but could be improved. 243 votes, 28.79%
• 4) Ugh. I’ll be playing the female Wiz. 220 votes, 26.07%
• 5) Hate it. J-pop boy-band reject! 140 votes, 16.59%
• 1) I love the male Wizard look. 137 votes 16.23%
• 3) I’m indifferent. M’eh. 104 votes, 12.32%

Total Votes: 844

We all followed eagerly along earlier this year, when the Jace Hall Show sneakily premiered the female Monk concept artwork. Most of us promptly forgot the show existed after that point, but it seems that Jace Hall didn’t forget about us, since there’s a mystery piece of Diablo 3 artwork on this week’s show.

You can see the Diablo III poster sitting on a chair across the room from Jace, during the interview segment with Peter Alau. That segment is chopped up into multiple short bits throughout the show, and most of the time Jace’s chin or arm is in the way. However there’s finally a clear view halfway through the show.

It’s clearly a signed Diablo III poster; you can tell that the upper corners are bent back as it folds around the chair, and you can see the signatures in silver ink. What’s harder to make out is the image, but after some comparison to various shots in our Diablo 3 Character Art Gallery, I confirmed that it’s this Monk painting. The image is flipped horizontally and centered, so the big dark demon head is much less prominent. But you can discern the Monk’s dark hand silhouette, his glowing blue staff, and of course the color scheme is identical.

If you’re wondering, that poster has never been made publicly available was given away as a special prize at Blizzcon 2009, but never sold. Clearly it’s something Blizzard did internally, and they’re giving signed copies out to various business partners. Like Peter Alau, Vice President of Business Development at Digital Extremes. Does want? Does want!

Click through for more comparison images. Thanks to a Fallen in Love comment from Mike Davoli for the tip.