Diablo 3 - 7 Development Points

[Dhruin]

MMOSite has a summary of an interview with Blizzard's Jay Wilson (http://news.mmosite.com/content/2010-03-16/diablo_iii_jay_wilson_shared_7_development_points, 1.shtml), where he explains they identified seven key points for the development of Diablo III. Here's an excerpt on RPG elements:
Jay Wilson expressed, Diablo III is designed to redefine the gaming experience of Diablo series. Diablo I and Diablo II emphasized action scenes, but Diablo III intends to strengthen the game's depth so as to make it a better and more profound RPG. As the previous Diablo installments paid attention to action performance instead of role playing, the developers hope Diablo III can make progress in presenting the role-playing elements and absorb the essence of Diablo I and Diablo II at the same time.
More information. (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=14620)

[Yeesh]

Wow, that quote made me queasy, so I read the article for some clarification. Alas there was none. Hopefully there's just some misspeaking or misunderstanding here, because I don't want a more profound RPG. I want a more awesome Diablo.

Diablo's not a game you play through 1 or 2 or 3 times like a traditional RPG. It's a game you play through 3 times PER CHARACTER with 5 or 6 characters. There's not going to be any emotional impact from tough RPG choices or whatever. Just please don't bother. This game is about hackin' em up and takin' their stuff. Just implement that in the most awesome possible way, and leave the pages of text to indie RPG developers (god bless them).

[Dhruin]

I admit I'm not Diablo's core audience and I wouldn't dream of completing any game three times per character but I'm hoping Leonard Boyarsky's efforts to create a deeper gameworld will be worthwhile. I doubt there are going to be tough moral choices but why can't the quests be more interesting or even have some choices? I don't see the harm.

[Tragos]

I guess a little depth won't hurt but i don't see how the whole choices system can work with only fighting skills at hand , killing monsters in different ways was the case in D2LoD too.

[DArtagnan]

Diablo III - to me - represents the ultimate revelation in terms of whether Blizzard still "has it" or not.

Since WoW, and especially due to the direction they've taken the game in post release, I've been extremely sceptical towards Bliz - and I used to love their work.

StarCraft 2 doesn't interest me much, and all evidence points to it being a highly polished and mildly evolved sequel. It's not something that's going to convince me one way or the other.

D3 looks pretty good, but nothing about it has me particularly intrigued. Love the genre, but it REALLY needs to evolve to excite me. It peaked with D2 - and that was when Bliz North still existed.

Hellgate was a game that deserved so much more, but they messed too many vitals up. Still, it actualy did evolve the genre - as the only ARPG to really do so, but the release state and a handful of seriously bad judgement calls destroyed it.

[Roland]

I don't think re-playability is going to be an issue. 5 Initial Classes and a TON of randomization built into the world/maps/quests...

"For the sake of creating repeatable gameplay, Diablo III assumes random monsters, random designs and random items, so that players can enjoy their endless treasure hunting. Due to the random combination of maps, players don't know which room, what item and what monster will appear each time they enter the dungeon. Important items or treasures will also come out at random. Likewise, items' intensity and attributes will change randomly, which will bring different values.
He knew that players may gain the best treasure in other RPGs immediately, but because of the treasure's randomness, players should trade with others to obtain treasures efficiently in Diablo III, which to some extent boosts the interaction between players. In addition, as monsters will become stronger after they are defeated once, players will have a chance to take more difficult and fresh challenges. Random quests will also be added to enrich the game story and spice up the whole game. There are so many random quests in a scene that players cannot complete all until they go through that scene for 10 times at least."

[Michael Dean]

Leonard's very intelligent about these things; I'm sure these changes won't be a disappointment or take away from the core Diablo experience whatsoever.

[Yeesh]

D3 looks pretty good, but nothing about it has me particularly intrigued. Love the genre, but it REALLY needs to evolve to excite me. It peaked with D2 - and that was when Bliz North still existed.

Hellgate was a game that deserved so much more, but they messed too many vitals up. Still, it actualy did evolve the genre - as the only ARPG to really do so, but the release state and a handful of seriously bad judgement calls destroyed it.

I was so heartbroken by the ending of Hellgate, which I never played. I was busy and it was rough going at the beginning, so I figured I'd wait a while until it got stable. With all the stupid little MMOs still around today, it just sucks that Hellgate couldn't have been one of them. Other than in Korea.

That said, I don't need Diablo to evolve too much, and they've already talked about some interesting changes. Doing away with health/mana potions is a pretty radical change, and while we'll have to see how the gameplay pans out, it at least proves that Blizzard is doing more than just slapping a new graphical paint job on the old formula. But we won't know til we get our hands on it.

I don't think re-playability is going to be an issue. 5 Initial Classes and a TON of randomization built into the world/maps/quests…

But that's the thing. Re-playability was NEVER an issue, and it certainly had nothing to do with the world, the map, or the quests. It's like they're trying to fix what wasn't broken. Or more like what was barely even there.

Whatever. 10 years from now when the stupid game actually comes out, we'll see what's what.

[Acleacius]

D3 will be better than any previous, Leon kfa!

[Greymane]

I agree with Yeesh, nobody played Diablo because it was great RPG experience. They should be careful they don't fix what wasn't broken and actually kill their own game. Diablo was good mindless repetition. Although after years of playing I NEVER got a complete elite set of anything :( Blizzard always has this fixation on making everything you do a competition with someone else somewhere... I'm not into competition, just entertainment for ME!