Diablo Junkie

BlizzCon is right around the corner, and the smart money is on Diablo III being the biggest news-maker of the show. Let’s kick things off with our humble list of 10 things we’d love to see in Diablo III…

Diablo 3 will be playable at BlizzCon 2008

Blizzcon starts tomorrow and there’s a ton of news related to Diablo 3 and the other Blizzard games.

Starting with Diablo 3 – there will be a playable demo (as predicted here). If you’re lucky to have a ticket, you’ll be able to play as a Witch Doctor or Barbarian. A third class will also be revealed and it will be playable too (see quote below from Blizzcon brochure):

Among these brave champions stands the enigmatic witch doctor, a spiritual warrior from deep within the Torajan jungles. At BlizzCon 2008, the witch doctor is yours to command for the first tim ever. Stop by the Diablo area on the show floor for your chance to lead this fierce new hero into the catacombs beneath the Tristram Cathedral.

While you’re there, revisit the raw strength of the barbarian – a Diablo series classic – or try your hand at Sanctuary’s newest champion, who will be revealed at the event.

So we have two basic archetypes: fighter and mage. Place your bets on who’s the next class to be revealed? I vote someone with shield … and hammer. Hammerdin!

We hope you got tickets …

Fiery Runes Series Two – Locations IV – Wallpapers

Town portals and corpse runs are two of the things that made Diablo and Diablo 2 quite unique. Now, they’re being “revisited” by the game design team.

Town portals will be removed in Diablo 3. Instead players will be using waypoints for quick transportation. I.e. if you’re close to a waypoint, you can go back to town.

Dying will similarly be based on the waypoints system. When you die, you don’t go back to town with all your equipment lying in some dungeon. You simply get teleported to the closest waypoint with minimal health (10%?). It’s your choice if you want to go back to town or you want to gulp a potion and continue hacking.

Here’s the “official” Blizz post at the Battle.net forums:

We want to separate being in town and being out on a quest/adventure/dungeon as much as possible. Leaving the safety of a town should not be a decision you take lightly. We don’t want to remove the sense of suspense and danger by making town something you’re always going back to pretty much whenever you like. The intent is to create a greater separation from being in town, and not, and to make your time away from town a lot more tense.

On that same note we also don’t want to remove the player from the action. Throwing them back to town for every death really breaks up the action, and not in a fun, interesting, or necessary way.

So, with these things in mind we’ve found that a check point system works really well. Throughout your adventures, and generally at the ends of each “floor” of a dungeon your character is saved to a checkpoint. When you die you’re dropped back at the last checkpoint with a small amount of health, and the rest regenerates slowly. It’s obviously a very forgiving system as it is. It’s just too early to put a ton of thought in to what penalties there should be, if any, added on top of it.

Regardless, potential penalties aside, this is the death mechanic we’re currently using and it’s working really well so far.

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