Steve Spohn, AbleGamers: Thank you both for your time, as you know, AbleGamers is a community site for Disabled Gamers, and we are happy to have a chance to speak to you about Diablo III. I know our time is limited, so let's get to it.
The experience system, synergies such as that in Diablo II with they be continuing and Diablo III?
Jay Wilson, Blizzard Entertainment: What we haven't announced anything about her skill system, yet... we will in the coming months, until we do, I won't be revealing any details about that. The one thing I will say is that what synergies... the goal really was to make... to improve a flaw with Diablo II skill system. And obviously, the kind of skill system that we're going to create we're going to look at all the flaws in the previous system and correct them. So that's always really say about that now.
This interview is a transposition of a live interview AbleGamers had with the folks at Blizzard. So it may be a little odd to read
Steve, AbleGamers: With the characters that were announced in the invitational being the barbarian and the witch doctor... the expansion of Diablo II at seven characters. Was there any reason that two of the characters, well actually three, were left out, and can you comment on which five will be in the game?
Jay, Blizzard: We're not trying to match the number of characters that Diablo II and the expansion had, in some way as we look at that as, "that's no fair! That's two game for the content that you asking us to match, as supposed to one." We're really trying to think what we would feel would be the right number of starting archetypes for the player and in the long run we will have five classes for Diablo III. I'm sure we will expand that with expansions down the road, but were really trying to focus on making those classes each kind of a unique and good experience for Diablo III. For example, the barbarian, we brought him back because he was a class that we really thought we could improve, but other classes... the other classes that were done really well and Diablo II, we looked at it and said "well, all I would really do is repeat that class." We don't think we could make such a significant improvement that it provides new gameplay or new experience. So in those cases, we haven't focused on really have heavily and bringing them back. That being said, once we get the original game out, and we start looking at expansions, we might think about different ideas like bringing back old characters that were really popular. But in the initial game are really focused on bringing new experiences to everyone.
Mark Barlet, AbleGamers: So necromancer yes or no?
Jay, Blizzard: In the core game, I would say what the witch doctor there that the necromancer is highly unlikely, but it is definitely one of those classes that will be looked at when, I don't see a way we can make that class significant way better. We know he's really popular; he's my favorite classroom Diablo II. So it's not like a snub on necro lovers. It's that we really want the classes to stand on their own and not just a rehash of the previous game. That being said, if the outcry is so great after we released the game will probably consider bringing back some old classes in an expansion.
Steve, AbleGamers: From what I'm getting so far. Generally speaking, Diablo III will be an entirely new concept in game. So you guys are not trying to pull any ideas from Diablo II, you will not be building on anything other than the world of Tristam
Jay, Blizzard: I wouldn't say and we would pull anything from Diablo two. It's just only look in different areas. We make decisions based on what from that area we want to bring back. For example, the items for Islam is not going to be the exact same as Diablo there are some changes, but the core of it is basically the same, or using the basically the same item generation mechanics backend systems, drop rates, data and information because that system work really really well. In the case of classes, we chose to try to create new classes, because he wanted to provide new gameplay in the area. So we really tried to handle this on a case-by-case basis we not trying to... we definitely don't want to rehash Diablo II, but we don't want to throw it away either.
Leonard, Blizzard: When you bring up the Tristram, it's kind of the same thing from the lore side, we didn't want to rehash things that were done really well... were not discounting anything, we want to continue the story. We want to bring it to its conclusion in a way. We want to explore all the things that were brought up previously. But one of the reasons I think we all just loved Tristram from D1, and it just felt like could get enough of it in D2. I don't know, it just felt right... It was one of those things is... we didn't... it came up after we has already started on the story, it came up as an idea, and it felt like a good thing to do. It's kind of like the barbarian, we didn't set out to say, "we have to have the barbarian in this game," it wasn't some kind of mandate that we had to have the barbarian or Tristram or this or that from the old game. As were developing this and were trying to capture the flavor that we want, the mood that we want, to telling the story that we want, we want to use this world we want to use this license, and that's quite possible. So these things come up and we say, "wow." We're fired up just like everybody else, we say, "Wow wouldn't it be so cool if Tristram looks like right now"or, "what happens with this place is?" That's kind of how were approaching everything in the game.
Steve, AbleGamers: Now right there, you did say the words conclusion. Are you saying Diablo III is the end? Is this a trilogy?
Leonard, Blizzard: No!
Steve, AbleGamers: gotcha...
Jay, Blizzard: I would deftly not say that Diablo III is the end of the Diablo universe by any stretch of the imagination. We really look at building our universe is not stopping them, but I do think there is a storyline that continues from Diablo to Diablo II. That... that storyline yeah we're going to look to pull all the strings together and have a nice trilogy like conclusion. But that's not the end of the Diablo universe it's just that particular... that particular storyline
Leonard, Blizzard: Will drop some new story threads I'm sure we won't close off, but exactly what Jay is saying, there are certain things that we feel... were not the string people long for another five games to get you the answers to certain things that happened. We feel we want some closure on some of the stories, and some of these details, and people just want to know what happens. We'll move on from there, see what the world takes us.
Mark, AbleGamers: if I can add a little bit about the hardware requirements you guys are spec'ing the game for, what I've heard so far, you're not trying to create a nether Diablo II, "now with better graphics." That said, there was a concern brought up by a member of the site about the DirectX 10 and Windows Vista versus Windows XP, do you guys plan on putting a DirectX 9 and a DirectX 10 of this game?
Jay, Blizzard: Currently we have no plans for specific DirectX 10 support. Right now are running a DirectX 9, and we run on a pretty broad range of systems, really fast. Overall, across-the-board Blizzard's goal is that all of our games support a broad range of systems. We don't jump up the system specs in any grand way. We have no intentions of being a high-end game, and certainly no intentions of being an exclusive DirectX 10 game at this time...
We don't exactly know what the system specs are yet, but we'll try to keep them pretty low. We make a lot of decisions about what we do and do not put into our graphics, in order to keep the game running fast. One of the reasons why we talk a lot about art style, and how we focus a lot on art style, stylization of art over... when we do that it allows us to have a good looking game about falling back on technology, our technology does not have to carry us when we have such great art in the game.
Mark, AbleGamers: so you are saying no to my Commodore 64?
All:
Steve, AbleGamers: as long as we're talking about hardware and videogame technology in the press release, it talks about Havoc and other engines that were going to be used for the new Diablo, so that the environment can be destroyed. I can understand why you went that way, since all the new games, you can destroy the environment to make it seem more real. One of the points that stuck out in bold on the press release was that the world will be randomly generated. Are we talking about random generated, like Diablo II, where it's the basically the same thing but one item is flipped to a different corner, or are we talking completely random generation; caves, trees, mobs, everything but the boss?
Jay, Blizzard: The first thing I'm not sure with Diablo II... there was quite a large amount of randomness, a lot of the dungeons were, we felt complete... we had large areas that were completely randomized, random monsters, random distribution of items, random champions and rares. So I think the amount of randomness in Diablo II was pretty reasonable, all things considered, and that's pretty much what we're targeting, a similar amount of randomness. We've made some decisions, and some changes on the random side with the exterior were actually focusing on a less random world, primarily to allow the artists to, one, build more organic environments, you can't really build organic... kind of cool looking environments, with lots of vistas, and cool things like bridges, and stuff like that when you have a ton of randomness in the environment. The two just don't go together. You also can't build a world that feels very real, because nothing is ever in the same place twice. That being said, we focused on new systems like our adventure system which allows us to basically cut large chunks out of the terrain and swap them out with different encounters so different type of monsters... one time he might go in there might be a big camp of monsters and a boss, and the next time there might be an abandoned house, next time it may be a caravan, and next time it could be just a piece of terrain with monsters randomly distributed on it. But all of our monster placement, all of our items everything like that is random. Our actual dungeon layouts are randomized, which is roughly to the same scale as Diablo II.
No comments:
Post a Comment