Blizzard Announces Diablo III

Posted on Monday 30th June 2008 at 05:47 by laszlow

We're a little late on this, but it's still worth a newspost. Saturday morning, at Blizzard's European expo in Paris, Blizzard announced the third installment in one of their three flagship series: Diablo. Diablo III will continue the tradition set by its predecessors, with intrepid adventurers exploring dungeons and seeking to defeat some unspeakable evil, using an action-oriented combat system with RPG elements that usually proves to be incredibly addictive for players.

Diablo III has no release date as of yet, but several trailers and gameplay videos are available on Blizzard's website. Specific plot and storyline details don't seem to be available. Diablo III will have five playable classes, and for the first time players must select a sex for their character, rather than having specific classes associated with specific sexes. Two of the classes are the Barbarian and the Witch Doctor; the former seems very similar to its Diablo II counterpart, while the latter seems to combine elements of the Necromancer and Sorceress classes from Diablo II.

Now that Blizzard has new games in development for each of their primary franchises, fans of just about any Blizzard game have something to look forward to in the coming years. Personally, I hope that by the time this comes out I'll be finished with school, because goodness knows I'll throw at least a hundred hours at it. It makes me feel like tracking down my Diablo II CDs and taking my old antipode-Sorceress for a spin.

Source: Blizzard

Posted in: RPG News

Written by	laszlow
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Comments

FallingHeart	Comment 1: 2008-06-30 06:04
	I know it seems like Witch doctor is overwriting necromancer, but he might not be. Here's a quote from IGN: Quote The witch doctor, on the other hand, seems to be more of a caster with a pet-control ability. Jay Wilson, a lead designer on Diablo III, said the witch doctor is not a replacement for Diablo II's necromancer. Now I can't tell if that means that the necromancer is still in or that the Witch Doctor will not incorporate the old necromancer elements. Necro was my favorite class to play, so I hope they keep it in. Other than that really excited.
laszlow	Comment 2: 2008-06-30 14:42
	Quote (FallingHeart @ 30th June 2008 01:04) I know it seems like Witch doctor is overwriting necromancer, but he might not be. Here's a quote from IGN: Quote The witch doctor, on the other hand, seems to be more of a caster with a pet-control ability. Jay Wilson, a lead designer on Diablo III, said the witch doctor is not a replacement for Diablo II's necromancer. Now I can't tell if that means that the necromancer is still in or that the Witch Doctor will not incorporate the old necromancer elements. Necro was my favorite class to play, so I hope they keep it in. Other than that really excited. I see where you're coming from, but don't you think that having both the Witch Doctor and Necro would be a little... redundant? I look at both of them and can't help but think that they're stylistically too similar to be in the same game. My guess is that the Necro's gone, but we'll see his themes and mechanics live on in other classes, like the Witch Doctor. Of course I'm really curious as to what the other three classes are, but I'm also wondering - what will be the differences between males and females, other than cosmetic ones? Base stats? Exclusive equipment? Skill trees? Nothing at all? EDIT: by the way, my favorite class to play as was Sorceress, but that might be because the only ones I ever put a lot of time into were Sorc, Druid, and Barb (I liked all three, but only did serious late-game stuff with my Sorc). I don't care who they keep or don't keep, honestly, because I'm sure I'll have fun with at least one class. Blizzard's good like that.
Ganolink	Comment 3: 2008-06-30 15:17
	Yeah, Blizzard sure has a lot going for them. SC2, D3, Wrath of the Lich King. Now announce The Lost Vikings 3 and i'll die happy .
laszlow	Comment 4: 2008-07-02 21:58
	Quote (Ganolink @ 30th June 2008 10:17) Yeah, Blizzard sure has a lot going for them. SC2, D3, Wrath of the Lich King. Now announce The Lost Vikings 3 and i'll die happy . It's funny that you should mention that - Blizzard confirmed yesterday that they're working on a fourth upcoming game, but they're keeping their mouths shut as to what it is. My hope is that it's a new IP, since they've been making only WC, SC, and Diablo games the past thirteen or fourteen years.
jacemm7283	Comment 5: 2008-07-06 04:24
	ive watched the 20 minute gameplay demo, and i hate the looks of it. it looks like World of Warcraft with a diablo badge. just the way its set up, they gameplay, the style, hotkeys, the healthballs... is blizzard going generic with this stuff? do they think that taking the warcraft pluses and basing the new diablo game around them will make a hot seller? diablo has survived over 10 years. d2 is still one of the most played rpgs online of all time. they are turning their back on their fanbase. i doubt i will be buying this title. its sad, i have played diablo since it came out. i have every version, D1, D1 hellfire, D2, D2 LoD. i was really looking forward to seeing progress in the series, but now im not so sure.
Dragon_Fire	Comment 6: 2008-07-06 08:10
	Quote (jacemm7283 @ 6th July 2008 00:24) ive watched the 20 minute gameplay demo, and i hate the looks of it. it looks like World of Warcraft with a diablo badge. just the way its set up, they gameplay, the style, hotkeys, the healthballs... is blizzard going generic with this stuff? do they think that taking the warcraft pluses and basing the new diablo game around them will make a hot seller? diablo has survived over 10 years. d2 is still one of the most played rpgs online of all time. they are turning their back on their fanbase. i doubt i will be buying this title. its sad, i have played diablo since it came out. i have every version, D1, D1 hellfire, D2, D2 LoD. i was really looking forward to seeing progress in the series, but now im not so sure. I couldn't disagree more. Yes, graphically it is animated in a style that is similar to Warcraft but is that really such a bad thing? Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loathe and despise WoW. Besides, isn't the WoW system just an upgraded version of what was used in Diablo II? The health and mana display is certainly smaller than DII, but really, you're going to ignore this game over something that petty? Well, that's your call. Personally, I'm excited beyond words for this game. Diablo and Diablo II have been addictions of mine since their debut. I was worried that with the end of Blizzard North, any chance of seeing this game happen would be out the window, but here it is! I'm glad to see Barbarians returning to the spotlight, I'm hoping that we get to see Sorceress and her male equivalent, as well as Amazon, or at the very least, Paladin to some extent. I'm not really concerned either way, these guys know what they're doing. Witch Doctor looks like it will be a hell of a lot of fun to play. Now all I need is a release date.
laszlow	Comment 7: 2008-07-06 09:59
	A lot of hardcore D II fans are very suspicious of the game. There's even a petition going around asking Blizzard to go back to Diablo's more familiar, darker aesthetic (they're saying it's "too colorful"). My response the doubters is this: it's Blizzard. Blizzard is more in-touch with their fanbase than just about any other gaming company in the world. They are acutely aware of what their fans want and they've responded by creating overwhelmingly popular and successful quality games - the only downside to it is that they've focused on only three IPs in the past twelve or thirteen years. If you don't like the look of Diablo III yet, then be patient. Blizzard knows their ****. And my quick thoughts on the Witch Doctor - Wall of Zombies is so cool an attack that I am immediately going to place at least eight points in it (if skill trees work the same as they did in Diablo II - if not that's cool). Mongrels are kind of lame, but locusts, firebombs, and Wall of Zombies are completely awesome.
Caesar	Comment 8: 2008-07-06 15:45
	I'm stoked. I didn't watch the whole gameplay trailer and I didn't watch any of the other videos purely because I don't want to get too excited for a game that won't come out for likely 3 more years. It does look incredible, though, and I will certainly buy it and ruin my future by playing it a whole ton. A week before they announced it, strangely enough, my brother and I got a strange urge to play D2 again, especially since the ladder reset on like June 18th or 17th or something. We now have 3 fully-armed level ~80's after just over a week of playing. We have played this game so much it's sickening. 3 ladder seasons of 8 fully-armed level 75+ characters...and a fourth in the works. It goes without saying that this is my favorite compy game and that D3 will get the same, if not more, playtime.
fatman	Comment 9: 2008-07-08 15:26
	How can anyone say this is too colourful? Personally, I think this looks fantastic. I only wish it would be released on consoles as well. I'm not too keen on the idea of having to upgrade my computer..
Ganolink	Comment 10: 2008-07-12 18:49
	As with about everything else, people are judging it too early if you ask me. I love the graphics, they managed to keep the D2 style while upgrading it to new-ish graphics and using new effects.
Galsic	Comment 11: 2008-07-13 03:33
	I'd be more excited if I knew I'd have a computer that could handle it. Course, if Caesar's right, then I have a few years to rectify that. We shall see.
laszlow	Comment 12: 2008-09-13 04:42
	I'm not sure how I missed this news tidbit, but here's a brief summary of a recent interview with some of the Diablo III head honchos: http://kotaku.com/5039711/only-the-barbari...n-in-diablo-iii Basically, the three yet-to-be-revealed classes are all going to be new. They even specifically mention the Necromancer as a class that isn't coming back. Let the speculation re-begin.
Ganolink	Comment 13: 2008-09-13 13:41
	Have anyone seen all the commotion at the forums about the rainbows? I personally think people are being too nitpicky
laszlow	Comment 14: 2008-09-21 02:09
	This wiki created by one of the major Diablo fansites has done a really good job of getting all the info in one place; check it out: http://www.diablowiki.net/Diablo_3_Basics Surveying all of that info, you can tell that this is a new team making the game - it really does seem like a combination of Diablo II and World of Warcraft, but likely for the better.
laszlow	Comment 15: 2008-10-10 21:33
	We have Wizard. His/her three trees are Storm, Conjuring, and Arcane, and she specializes in wind/ice/lightning elemental spells and time/space manipulation magic. Female and male versions just like the other two classes. Looks like a lot of fun, like they took the five Druid wind spells and the Sorceress's entire lightning tree and totally went nuts. Here's a trailer. EDIT: Here's a transcript of a game design panel at Blizzcon; they talk about the Wizard in greater detail, and also about how they want skills organized for all of the new classes. I like a lot of the things they're saying: Quote D3 is designed to have characters using 6 active skills (and lots more passive). The controls work with that, and they want to allow/enforce about that much variety. So theyâ€™re trying to make the skill trees support that concept, and that much variety. They do not want to repeat the D2 style of most players specializing in just 1 or 2 killing skills, with a few other support that you might only have 1 or 2 points in. Or the synergy style of 4 skills maxed out just to support one skill. They want more variety, a mixture of active skills, all of which require multiple points to become powerful. They also want beginning level skills to remain useful throughout.
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