IncGamers Diablo III Interview

Posted 10th Sep 2008 06:55 PM by Leord

IncGamers’ Jeff Hollis was at PAX recently, and got the time to talk to Bashiok, who was unusually happy to share Diablo III information, including the far ahead planned Diablo 3 expansion, details about weapon drops and exclusive information on health/mana leach in the new game. IncGamers published Jeff’s article about it, and here is a snip:

He gave us an example, which he indicated isn’t commonly known:  “We’re iterating a lot on the health orb system.  The way it looks right now, orbs will just drop.  It may end up a lot more like a ‘health up’ from a platformer, and not like the way it worked in Diablo II.  You step into one, and you heal yourself.”
He also added that the health orbs may also aid people in your group, possibly according to need and range:  “We’re also looking at a system where you step into it, and you’ll heal a party member.”  He indicated that none of this, of course, is confirmed, and much testing and implementation has yet to be done.

Sad news for anyone who love mana/health leaching, it seems there won’t be any in Diablo III… Read more here.

Remember that you can find all pictures, video interviews, regular interviews, previews and important Blizzard quotes in the DiabloWiki Media Coverage archive of Diablo 3.




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Filed under: Interviews, Bashiok

Comments

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Bandreus
Posted 10, Sep 2008 10:10 PM
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Great infos!!!
I’ll quote this "we’re leaning towards characters becoming individualized with their gear and talent specs". *talents*
And, DIII demo at BlizConn? Hell yes pls ^^

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Uldyssian
Posted 10, Sep 2008 11:02 PM
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I’ll do a happy dance if I can try out a Diablo 3 demo at Blizzcon. HUUUZZAAH!!!

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Kunzaito
Posted 10, Sep 2008 11:09 PM
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I *like* the way the health system is shaping up. It reminds me of the Legend of Zelda, where you depend on killing enemies to heal your wounds. Those games offered a limited number of times to heal yourself, though, so I wonder if that won’t be incorporated somehow?

My favorite health system ever, though, came from the very first Final Fantasy game. You had up to 99 potions that could heal 30 life each, a long dungeon ahead, and you hoped to make it out the other side. Rationing your potions and spells was quite the art form.

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Risingred
Posted 10, Sep 2008 11:36 PM
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I kind of assumed that life leech was out of the picture. I agree with Kunzaito on the subject, I think this is a great step forward.

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durrem
Posted 11, Sep 2008 02:52 AM
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I don’t know.  The more I hear about it, the more I see a long slow grind in my future… :/

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Uldyssian
Posted 11, Sep 2008 02:59 AM
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I am sure they will find a nice balance between skills puling you thru tough times vs health drops. I am excited. The potions never were the part of the game I’d tell friends about when getting them to play. Lol.

"Dude! Get this… you swig thousands of potions on boss fights to stay alive!"

Hehe.

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Flux
Posted 11, Sep 2008 04:35 AM
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All their plans with health globes and few potions and adding strategic difficulty pretty much require life leech to not be a factor, or to be a very small one, ala D1.  As I (and others) have been saying for weeks, the usual Jay Wilson line about D2 being too easy because of potions isn’t the real story, since leech is vastly more useful than potions. My chars only drink potions in rare emergencies (which is, apparently, when we’ll be wanting to drink them in D3, with the health globes approximating life leech and keeping our chars topped off during all regular battles.)

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Shallie
Posted 11, Sep 2008 09:25 AM
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I fully agree with Flux. Life leech was/is the "problem" in D2, and with the implementation of the insight runeword, you’ve been able to just spam your spells/skills.

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Leord
Posted 11, Sep 2008 12:18 PM
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Looking at StarCraft II, and the level of just pure polish they are doing now when the entire game engine is more or less perfected, I would assume we will be feeling nothing like a feeling of grind like in D2.

More varying things happening and more ACTION are the two lead themes.

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Frank_the_tank
Posted 11, Sep 2008 02:20 PM
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So I guess we can pretty much count hardcore mode out, as it’s heavily depending on leech and potions, at least in nm/hell. A shame since hardcore was the best thing about D2.

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