 Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
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| How long has the game been in the works? Almost six years. Although I've been working on it for almost three. In my team there are a few guys who have been involved the whole time, but the majority of the team has been involved for two to three years. Is this in part because of the creative issues that had to be resolved earlier in the project? Yeah. I think the first issue... I can't speak much about Blizzard North because its before my time, but one of the biggest issues was that because of the values of Blizzard in general its really hard to have an external creative group, separate from the core group. There's too much that's done; sound, cinematics and story - so much of its done at core Blizzard HQ that they learnt the lesson that all groups should be internal. That's the only way that all the philosophy gets passed on. That's the conclusion they came to when they tried to bring Blizzard North into the main HQ arena. I think they offered 46 of the 49 positions... to move down. It wasn't that they didn't want Blizzard North involved, it was that they said "you guys don't function well away from us". So a lot of the team came down. Since then, we've had creative struggles... trying to find a game worthy of the Diablo 3 name. |
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Blizzard offered up a generous single dungeon demo at the event, which inevitably became a playground of charnel pursuits for the hundreds of attendees that managed to score a playthrough. It wouldn’t be Diablo without fully randomized dungeons. During our three playthroughs, the game generated a unique dungeon every time, with few reoccurrences. And just looking at the dozens of monitors around us, we knew immediately what everybody’s favorite class was. The Wizard, which Blizzard unveiled only an hour before…
Did you ever watch slides of family holidays as a kid? Sitting in a dark room seeing your grandfather and grandmother strolling the streets of Cuba, buying you that hollow coconut that’s supposed to be an instrument of some description when used with a stick? Well, if you didn’t you’re probably better off, but Diablo III is different though! Even in stills you have strong poses, powerful impressions and lots and lots of gore. If only I could replace all those hours wasted with Diablo III footage, how my life would have been more… Bloody… 
The Diablo 3 gameplay video from BlizzCon 2008 is full of new interesting details about the game and we have taken the time to snap the most important shots from the clip, adding descriptions of what is actually going on (just like we did with the WWI gameplay and cinematic videos)! A few of the shots are multiple shots of the same spell, chosen to give anyone with limited bandwidth an idea of the spell or effect animations. On that note, I recommend that you use the “Sort By Filename” functionality we have in the gallery, so you can see all the pics in sequence.
Some of the pics from the new gameplay are really something and I recommend everyone to take a look even if you have seen the video to get a a more detailed description of what is actually going on. You’ll find all the pictures in the BlizzCon 2008 Diablo 3 Screenshot Gameplay Gallery. Below are a few examples:
Later than I wanted it to be, but quite long and details, here’s my Wizard gameplay report, based on my Wizard playtime at Blizzcon. This report covers the basic gameplay style (kinda Sorceress-y), has a bit of discussion of items, and goes into great detail on the lower level active spells, most of which I was able to test out. There are links aplenty in this piece, pointing to the various Wizard skill tree pages in our wiki, all of which add many more details, stats, descriptions, and screenshots of the Wizard’s leet skillz. Refer to them as you read, and you’ll gain considerable knowledge of the character you know you are simply itching to get your hands on.
Read on to see the full report…
If you enjoyed the hilarious first part of the BlizzCon 2008 dance contest, you’ll be happy to know IncGamers have just put up part 2! Check it out below:
IncGamers have posted the first half of their BlizzCon Dance Contest, so if you haven’t seen it, make sure you take time to give it a watch. They had guts to get up there in front of all those people and do that, good on em!
The /Silly contest is also available for viewing as fans come up with funny jokes to win stuff. Put the kettle on then sit back an enjoy.
Our week of Blizzcon demo articles continues, today with coverage of that Necromancer usurper, the Witch Doctor. I had a chance to play through the entire Blizzcon demo with this character, and have written up the general play style, the strengths and weaknesses, and included some coverage of the skills, the overall character design, the structure of the skill trees, the WD-themed items I saw, and more.
In conjunction with this report, the Witch Doctor skill trees have all been updated with the most recent info from Blizzcon. Unfortunately, unlike the Wizard and Barbarian, who had more than 50 skills each on display in the Blizzcon build, there were just 11 Witch Doctor abilities enabled. All were active skills and all could be used, but without any of the passives and masteries listed, or any skills from further down than the second tier, it’s hard to do more than guess at how the character will play in the full game.
The full skill trees can be seen here, and click through to read the detailed gameplay report.
Thanks to day to day work and some real life complications, I’ve not had time to properly write up much of the D3 information I gathered at Blizzcon. As a result, aside from my Barbarian gameplay report, MedievalDragon’s Gameplay Impressions, and our coverage of the Barbarian and Wizard skills, we’ve not posted the exhaustive game reports this site has long been known for. That’s about to change.
I’ll be posting an articles each day this week, articles that will feature in depth discussion of various elements of the Blizzcon demo. Besides the demo info, I’ll be incorporating what we learned from panels, Q&A sessions, and personal communication with the D3 Team. Today’s the first and least of these reports, and it sets the scene with basic information about the Blizzcon demo, dungeon levels, gore and horror elements, and NPCs found in the demo. If that doesn’t sound like much, click through and be surprised at much much there is to cover on those aspects of things. Later this week I’ll get to Witch Doctor and Wizard gameplay overviews, and also address topics such as quests, combat, items, skill runes, active and passive skill design, the game interface and controls, critical hits, basic game strategy and pace, and much, much more.
Click through to enjoy…
IncGamers have just put up their video of the BlizzCon Costume Contest. If you haven’t had a chance to see all these awesome competitors yet, check it out right now by clicking the image below:
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