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Diablo III

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Horadric is awesome. I hope the transmuting cube is still an artifact in D3.

I think it likely will be.

The guy next to me at work was getting excited about the possibility of a 'Cow level' in Hellgate London the other day.

Apparently you get Wirt's Leg in that game and when you look at the item it has something about '20' on the back. In Diablo II you needed to transmute a Tome of Town Portal (20 scrolls I believe) and Wirt's Leg and in Hellgate there is a similar transmuting device as well as town portal-esque items.

I'm sure you can get more detailed info about all that somewhere else but I thought it was pretty awesome.

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http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=167096&page=2

Seems like the health orbs might change the combat system in a mayor way, making some specific skills more important than health potions.

I hope it will feel something like The Witcher, where you couldn't simply replenish health all the time due to toxicity of the potions so you had to use more specific potions depending on the situation to maximise their effects.

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http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=167096&page=2

Seems like the health orbs might change the combat system in a mayor way, making some specific skills more important than health potions.

I hope it will feel something like The Witcher, where you couldn't simply replenish health all the time due to toxicity of the potions so you had to use more specific potions depending on the situation to maximise their effects.

Isn't that the exact opposite of what Diablo 3 is trying to do? Less potion-juggling, more gameplay?

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I didn't mean exactly as Witcher -- while Witcher made things more interesting (for me at least) mostly by making alchemy almost obligatory, Diablo III could do the same with skills etc.

[edit] also, I wouldn't go as far to say that potions aren't part of the gameplay.

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I know what you mean Erkki - the steady rythmic pressing of the 1 key (or whatever) to keep your health topped up can become so ubiquitous as to become irrelevant (The Witcher, by contrast has you drink just one or two potions per encounter, if I'm correct?)

So this new health orb system ensures that you don't need to constantly press your health potion key, just keep moving around. It probably helps with your inventory being taken over by a potion stockpile as well.

I'm slightly reminded of Lionhead's philosophy that as much of the gameplay, feedback and controls should take place 'in-world' rather than in the UI that hovers over and apart from it (something I'd like to see more of in MMO's actually).

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Yeah, in Witcher you usually drink 1-2 potions if faced with tougher enemies and more often BEFORE combat. Some potions last longer as well, so you need to think ahead.

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I've been reading around on blogs the reaction to Ashley Cheng's comments about Diablo III being conservative and Blizzard's lack of innovation.

Leaving that to one side for a moment, I think people might be pleasantly surprised, and for one main reason: I've got a hunch that the Diablo III engine has branched off from Starcraft II.

The 3D landscape interaction, havok physics, swarm AI... they share a lot in common (perhaps Diablo 1 was itself built on Warcraft tech - I hadn't thought of that before). Anyway I suspect that we may find some RTS type ideas secreted away in the gameplay of Diablo III.

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and there's a fair chance it was based on WoW's client engine

why reinvent the wheel when you already have most of the parts lying around

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Actually, that was a thought that had crossed my mind recently as well; that Diablo 3 might be closer linked to Starcraft 2 than WoW. Just a feeling.

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Actually, that was a thought that had crossed my mind recently as well; that Diablo 3 might be closer linked to Starcraft 2 than WoW. Just a feeling.

How could it be ? I mean one's an RPG that spawned from an RTS that integrated a good part of RPG in its last opus while the other one is an RTS aimed at competition in Korea... ok, the technology is surely the same, yet they certainly don't share the sim aspect of the engine, so I think it's far fetched to expect Diablo 3 to use RTS elements just because its engine branches from Starcraft 2's.

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Vimes, just look at the little "dungeon crawl" missions in Starcraft and Warcraft 3 - the ones where you just get a couple of heroes and a handful of men. Those show how you can build a hack'n'slasher using an RTS engine. Then there's the way AI handles skirmishes. Oh, and the "tech" trees for each class. The more I think about it, the more it seems the action-RPG genre is actually a branch of RTS.

Who knows, perhaps there will be a form of resource management to top it off.

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It would make sense; engines have been widening the kind of genres they can do for years. With more CPU cycles flying around they don't have to be so bespoke anymore.

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It'd be awesome in an engineering sense, but I doubt it. Here's why :

The only game I worked on professionally was an RPG/hack'n'slash (Silverfall - Earth Awakening) whose game engine had also powered some sims-like, a few tycoon games and even a party game... that doesn't mean the sim of one was included in the other. That's the point of branching engine : what you carry on from one project to another are fundamental and gameplay neutral feature; thus mainly graphical, network and audio library improvements.

In my case, the AI was never really transferred across genre : they might have used the framework from the sim (Dino Island was the name) in Silverfall, but the approaches were totally different : in Silverfall, the AI was heavily scripted and was completely reactive (no autonomous behavior) while for the tycoon, it had to act on its own.

If Blizzard employs very talented engineers and has put in place an superior kind of technology and engineering knowledge management, they might be able to recycle game design features from one genre into another. But even then, I expect most lead game designers to ask for modifications of the existing ones for their pet project, which basically means re-developping most of the stuff.

That's why I say I'd be very surprised to see RTS elements in a pure hack'n'slash serie like Diablo. But ... (back to line 1 of this post)

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Heh :)

Yes, if and where to fork technology is a really hairy question for multi-studio developers that use proprietary tech. Sometimes games need specific features that completely divorce them from others in development on the same engine, necessitating a new branch.

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Never did play any Diablo's and the only Blizzard game I've played is Warcraft 3 (and The Frozen Throne). I've seen some friends try to get back into it and all I can remember thinking was "What a waste of time" what with the mindless click-fest grinding. Watching the gameplay demo though...well I want to play it.

Also, Dr. Dog rocks (they're coming to Rochester (NY) on the 26!). Nice avatar Nachimir.

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Bringing this thread out of retirement with the power of my mighty bump.

The young men are angry at Blizzard's thoughtless decision to not include silicon tit.

I bet she doesn't even have a lesbian sex scene either. I prefer the old Diablo games. I could masturbate to those women all day.

diablo.png

Coming...coming...came.

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Bringing this thread out of retirement with the power of my mighty bump.

The young men are angry at Blizzard's thoughtless decision to not include silicon tit.

Le Sigh. Blizzard's fan community really are a bunch of retards.

That character is possibly the most attractive and best proportioned female they have designed to date. If someone in our group beats me to the wizard (Wizzaaaaaaaarrd) then I may well play the monk instead. The old guy version is cool too (although I wish his beard was grey).

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No sequins?! This is bullshit.

Seriously though, I realized the same thing. I came back to review what had happened in Diablo 3 land in the last 3 months, and the whole petty discussion instantly made me sick with the pathetic state of fandom nowadays. Every decision is scrutinized and lamented. You'd almost wish Diablo 3 would just be a goddamn My Little Pony game, for the exclusive pleasure of telling all those fuckers to go fuck themselves.

Imagine how it must be for the D3 developers, being harassed and assaulted constantly by morons. It's almost enough for me to not want to play the game anymore for fear of being associated with that segment of fanbase.

Edited by Rodi

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It's the one thing I thought when I saw the female version of the monk "Why isn't she wearing a iron-clad bikini/thong?" I am outrage! How dare! The only reason why you would put a female avatar in your game, is for men to have something nice to look at. If she's not hot enough, then what is the point!?

Now I'm not a great artist but I just took about 20 minutes to show you what I think would be some improvements:

http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/7484/fmonkmod.jpg

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but her breasts aren't small, are they

No, they're not.

Part of it is the barbie-doll effect, whereby a small-scale model makes some features look smaller than they should be, despite being in perfect proportion. Thus they tend to get exagerrated. Scaled up to life-size, Barbie would be something like 38-18-34, with a double-D cup (and would quickly develop crippling back problems).

The other factor is habituation. It's Blizzard's own fault, in that they have over the years shown their players constant images of barbie-proportioned women wearing chainmail bikinis... and now the younger fans that have grown up with that imagery think it is normal! This makes it difficult to do anything else. The same goes for much of game industry of course... and Western society come to that.

I don't have any problem with conventionally pretty women (the older I get, the more often I seem to fall for blondes - weird) but as for fictional heroines the ones that really do it for me are the more down-to-earth hint-of-tomboy types. They just seem much more capable and believable and interesting because of that.

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