Diablo III

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This article contains information about an unreleased video game, and may change substantially as more information becomes available. Please do not add speculation to this article, and remember to cite a published source when adding information.

Diablo III
Diablo III website splash page
Developer(s)	Blizzard Entertainment
Designer(s)	Jay Wilson (lead), Leonard Boyarsky (world)
Composer(s)	Russell Brower[1]
Series	Diablo
Platform(s)	Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows[2]
Release date(s)	TBA
Genre(s)	Action role-playing (hack and slash)
Mode(s)	Single-player, online multiplayer (over Battle.net)
Media	DVD
Input methods	Keyboard, mouse

Diablo III is an action role-playing game in a hack and slash and "dungeon roaming" style, currently in development as the third installment of Blizzard's Diablo franchise. It was unveiled on June 28, 2008, at the 2008 Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational in Paris, France.^[2]

[edit] Story

The game takes place in Sanctuary, the dark fantasy world of the Diablo series. This world was saved twenty years prior by a handful of unnamed heroes in Diablo II. Warriors that survived the onslaught of the armies of the Burning Hells have gone mad from their ordeals and it is up to a new generation of heroes to face the forces of evil threatening the world of Sanctuary. Players will have the opportunity to explore familiar settings such as Tristram.

The only confirmed NPC is Deckard Cain,^[3] who has appeared in both of the previous games. Cain's journal on the official site brings players up to speed on the events of the first two games.^[4]

[edit] Gameplay

Diablo III will retain a feel similar to that found in earlier games in the series, including a viewpoint reminiscent of the old isometric view. Note the new inventory system.^[5]

Diablo III is similar in style to its predecessor, Diablo II. The proprietary engine will incorporate Havok physics and feature destructible environments with an in-game damage effect. The developers are aiming to make the game run on a wide range of systems, and have stated that DirectX 10 will not be required.^[5] Diablo III will use a custom 3D game engine^[6] in order to present an overhead view to the player, in a somewhat similar way to the isometric view used in previous games in the series; players may zoom in for a tighter shot of their character, though.^[5] Enemies will utilize the 3D environment as well, in ways such as crawling up the side of a wall from the depths into the combat area.^[3] Every creature model will have 35 unique death animations.^[7]

As in Diablo II, multiplayer games will be possible using Blizzard's Battle.net service,^[8] with many of the new features being developed for StarCraft II also available in Diablo III.^[5] Players will be able to drop in and out of sessions of co-operative play with others. ^[9]

An enhanced quest system, a random level generator, and a random encounter generator are slated for use in order to ensure the game provides different experiences when replayed.^[2] Overall, the game will include both static and randomly generated levels.^[9] Additionally, there will be class-specific quests to go along with the main storyline quests.^[10] For the first time in the series, in-engine cutscenes will be employed during key moments.^[11] A new inventory system similar to World of Warcraft will be implemented, rather than the system of previous games where differently-sized items take up different amounts of space in the inventory. Two new armor pieces will be available: the shoulder plate, and the leggings.^[7]

Unlike previous iterations, gold can be picked up merely by touching it, rather than having to manually pick it up.^[11] Sidekicks, unlike Diablo II, are now discrete NPCs who join the player, rather than randomly-generated and endlessly replaceable hires.^[11] One of the new features intended to speed gameplay are health orbs that drop from enemies, replacing the need to have a potion bar, which itself is replaced by a skill bar that allows a player to assign quick bar buttons to skills and spells; previously, players could only assign two skills (one for each mouse button) and had to swap skills with the function keys. Players can still assign specific attacks to mouse buttons.^[11]

Skill Runes, another new feature, are skill-modifying items that are randomly dropped by monsters and used across all classes. They can be attached to each skill like an item, often completely changing the gameplay of each skill.^[12] They also have the ability to make one particular spell in each class more powerful, and give the player options as to how the rune will enhance a particular spell. For example, investing Skill Runes on Wizard Chain Lightning allows the players to make Chain lightning jump towards additional enemies, or, alternatively, adding the runes with explosion effect blows the enemy up and causes damage to the surrounding area. ^[13]

[edit] Character classes

Three of the five classes have been unveiled so far: Barbarian, Witch Doctor and the Wizard.^[2][14][15] A fake class, the Archivist, an imitation of a well known character of Diablo, Deckard Cain, was presented on April 1, 2009, by Blizzard as an April Fool's Day joke. Players may choose the sex of each class, a change from the fixed class sexes in the previous two games.^[3] The Barbarian, previously featured in Diablo II, is the only class that Blizzard is planning to bring back for the initial release, but former classes may appear in future expansions.^[16]

[edit] Development

Deckard Cain speaking to a barbarian player in an in-engine cutscene

Development on Diablo III began some time in 2005 when Blizzard North was still in operation. The original artistic design differed from that shown at Blizzard Worldwide Invitational 2008 demonstration, and had undergone three revisions before reaching the standards felt necessary by the team behind Diablo III. The development teams comprise fifty people. Most of the game mechanics and physics are complete, and are undergoing minor revisions. Most of the current and remaining development will focus on adding game content.^[17]

Diablo III's lead designer is Jay Wilson, a former Relic Entertainment designer credited with work on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Company of Heroes. Its lead world designer is Leonard Boyarsky, one of the six co-creators of Fallout.^[18]

The game is being planned for a simultaneous release on both Windows and Mac OS X platforms.^[9] No official date has been decided.

[edit] Art direction and design

Screenshots and gameplay footage were released on June 28, 2008. Three days later, several websites cited a petition that expressed concern with the art style used,^[19] calling for a "darker, more realistic" look.^[20] The petition criticized the game's apparent resemblance to World of Warcraft, the purported lack of the "light radius" from the previous games, "colorful and cartoon-like" visuals and "out-of-proportion" character figures and armor.^[21][22] To illustrate what the proposed changes would look like in motion, on September 11, 2008 a fan filtered the original promotional video through use of After Effects.^[23] However, while the proposed changes may be clear, the degree to which those changes reflect the original series is not; with developers on both sides arguing both for and against the current direction.^{[24][25][26][27]}

Lead designer Jay Wilson has also expressed doubts as to whether such effects were desirable, or even possible commenting:

Though it looks really cool, it’s almost impossible to do in a 3D engine because you can’t have lighting that smart and run on systems that are reasonable. If we could do that, we probably would in a few of the dungeons. Now in terms of the actual texturing, this texturing, where they grayed out everything and it’s very flat and the monsters are all kind of a similar tone — that does not play well. It’s very boring to run through more than a couple of times, and it’s very difficult to tell creatures apart and pop them out of the environment. So those things don’t really work for us.^[28]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official website
• Diablo III at the Open Directory Project