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 The Diablo series and other games like it (Titan Quest, Mythos, Torchlight) were always confined to a fixed axonometric camera. With the exception of Mythos, which allowed for WASD controls, Diablo’s fixed view was always one of its greatest strengths as it allowed for the designers to map out locations, pace encounters and design set-piece boss battles based on the confines of the fixed perspective. Blizzard representative Bashiok addressed the forum’s question regarding the fixed view in Dia… More |
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In the Gold Mine added on October 19, 2009
 I had a chance to speak with Leonard Boyarsky a couple of weeks ago. For those not in the know, Leonard Boyarsky is the Lead World Designer of Diablo III, and he’s credited for being one of the masterminds of the Fallout world and guiding the art direction on the original Fallout game. We managed to speak at length on the subject of Diablo III’s lore and the development of its setting. The following interview has been transcribed from audio. How do you come up with ideas for the creation … More
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 Players of the Diablo titles have always had a love/hate affair with the inventory management of the games, due in part to the “tetris inventory” system that’s all too common in action RPGs. With each item taking up a specific size, housecleaning of one’s inventory becomes a time-wasting metagame of sorts. Blizzard’s community manager explains the progress of developing Diablo III’s inventory management and where things stand at the moment. Inventory management and the systems that surround i… More
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 A poster on the Battle.net forums threatened to boycott Blizzard by ending his subscription to World of Warcraft, reasoning that if many more players were to follow in his footsteps, this would somehow speed up the release of Diablo III. Not one to fall for shenanigans riddled with bad logic, Blizzard’s community manager Bashiok replied with some suggestions with how the game’s development might be sped up for real: Time machines Removal of electromagnetic forces as they relate to friction Sma… More
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 Blizzard has launched its very own channel on YouTube featuring videos from all of its popular games including Diablo III and World of Warcraft to provide gamers with a kind of one-stop-shop for every official video clip and trailer that the company has to offer. Be sure to subscribe to it here. As a big part of the company’s bid to reach out to as many gamers as possible, Blizzard also launched three accounts on Twitter for Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft some time ago. Bashiok posted an announ… More 
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 If you’ve ever played Diablo II then you’re probably well aware of the advantages that the Sorceress has over the other classes, not in terms of killing ability or the ability to be killed at an appalling speed, but rather the ability to teleport themselves across the map quicker than any other class in no time flat. This unique ability of theirs (though one later granted by the Enigma runeword), if left as it is and implemented into Diablo III, would pose a huge balance problem for the game. As… More
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 Someone on the Battle.net forums posed a question to Blizzard concerning the development of unique player characters and asked why no visuals of the male wizard or female monk have been released thus far, and in his folly, assumed that the design of both genders of a single character class required merely a change in the player model and little else. Ever eager to provide a clarification, Blizzard’s Bashiok was quick to respond: Weeeeell... It requires a new model and new texture. And our class … More
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GZ: Working from an isometric camera angle it enables you to control exactly what the player sees. As an artist what sort of advanta… More
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 In previous Diablo games, the skills of every class required the straightforward use of mana. Not so in Diablo III, where Blizzard plans for each of the game’s five classes to derive its energy from a unique source, with mana only being used by the Witch Doctor. Here are some of the things the game’s community manager, Bashiok, had to say about the energy systems in the game, with a preliminary explanation on how the Barbarian’s fury system works at the moment. The barbarian fury system works o… More
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 Comparisons between Diablo III, its predecessor and Blizzard’s other game, World of Warcraft, are often voiced on the official Battle.net discussion forums. Somewhat tired of the disdainful and often repetitive comments that often unfairly compare the games, Blizzard community manager Bashiok lays the hammer down and he points out the perceptions that different audiences tend to have of the game. "Well I think it's kind of easy to look at changes and advancements in the RPG genre as a whole a… More
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 One of the largest changes with the character development system in Diablo III is its implementation of automatic attribute assignment. Gone is the old system where players had to manually assign points to one of four stats (Strength/Dexterity/Willpower/Vitality). In the new system, points are automatically assigned to each attribute upon the character’s leveling up based on the character’s class. Players are still however free to assign points to skills of their choosing and furthermore defin… More
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 Non-transferable items that are solely attached to your character, or “soulbound” equipment, have always been a touchy subject in online RPGs. With many items subject to being traded, the in-game economy in an online game is often at risk of hyperinflation, and handing items down to lower level characters, or “twinking” as it’s more commonly known tends to arouse discussions on game balance and fairness. Bashiok has since posted a number of details regarding bound items in Diablo III to clarify… More
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 In the wake of complaints about Starcraft II's lack of LAN support, Blizzard and Battle.net developer Greg Canessa said at the recent BlizzCon 2009 that the company is actively working on a LAN-like solution for its Battle.net service. Speaking to Shacknews, Canessa said, “We are working on solutions with regard to things we can do to maintain connectivity to Battle.net in some way, but also provide a great quality connection between players.” Asked whether the solution might include a pseu… More
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 One of the cool but less talked about things to come out of BlizzCon this year are Blizzard's new Noobz vinyl designer toys. To come up with three producible designs, Blizzard gave out 225 blank Noobz to company employees who were then asked to turn them into works of art. The best collectible figures were on display at BlizzCon this year, and photos of them can be found here.… More
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 Blizzard has produced a much more thorough write-up of the Diablo III Heroes & Monsters panel that took place at BlizzCon 2009. Here it is below, reposted for posterity. The Monk The panel began by showcasing the monk as a fast but fragile melee fighter, providing a contrast to the barbarian’s slower but harder-hitting melee presence in the game. The monk’s influences draw from classic pen and paper RPG archetypes, but his style also incorporates the development team’s love of arcade-style … More |
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