Diablo 3 - Top Ten Most Wanted Features @ Hellforge

Diablo III fansite Hellforge has posted an op-ed with their top ten list of requested features for Blizzard's upcoming action rpg in the Diablo series.
Here's a snip:

1. Make all skills worthwhile. Diablo II benefited as much as it suffered from its abundant amount of skills, half of which were poorly balanced or given little thought. While I'm not expecting every skill and skill combination to be useful in every given circumstance, I'm hoping that Blizzard to puts some major thought into the design of these skills that will make each them worthwhile additions to a character's repertoire of talents...
5. Don't skimp on the single player. Single player felt quite a bit like an afterthought in the Blizzard North-developed Diablo II, and even more so in Hellgate: London. With consideration to the many roguelike enthusiasts who view the Diablo series as a culmination of the dungeon crawling genre and those who have a strong preference for offline gaming, it's hoped that these players are able to enjoy playing the game by themselves as much as the rest of us will in co-op online.

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More information.

4. Drench us in blood and gore. With zombies losing their heads and spurting blood to form pools beneath their frozen bodies to exploding magma golems, and demons that turned to ash, the original Diablo contained just about the right amount of graphic violence. Not too much, and not too little. The less violence sequel took a lot of the visceral experience away, featuring far less blood and fewer sinful visual delights. It goes without saying that we'd like for Diablo III to be just as bloody as the original, if not more so. A bit of ragdoll physics here and there could certainly help to spruce up the display of flying, dismembered limbs.

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*shudder*

Now, is THAT the way RPGs are growing into ? Dark & gritty, and then ultra-violence ?

What's fun of that anyway ?

*shudder*

Alrik, Diablo was the mother of all Dark! and Gritty! games. With Splatter! mixed in. Well, maybe not the mother, but still, the very essence of Diablo was being D&G. And atmospheric.

As for the list, I would have expected "change the graphics" as #1, but it's not even listed. Whatever happened to that? Did the community give in? Aside from that, I'd have voted for the cooperative aspect (#6), because co-op was what made Diablo so great for me and my pals in the first place. If they can improve upon that, yay!

how thoughtful, a devstudio is supposed to take orders from kids and their silly wishes.
now, is THAT the way rpgs are growing into???
deary me?..
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Now, is THAT the way RPGs are growing into ?

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Is Diablo a cRPG?

Diablo 2 was one of the games I spend many hours playing it several years ago but I completely lost interest later and now I do not care about Diablo 3. I'll just remember D2 as a good game.

Arhu said:

Alrik, Diablo was the mother of all Dark! and Gritty! games. With Splatter! mixed in. Well, maybe not the mother, but still, the very essence of Diablo was being D&G. And atmospheric.

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I played the first game a bit - in the end I couldn't stand all this darkness - I'm not the type for such mood it creates. I don't like horror movies as well.

D2/LOD was a bit lighter, which I played through almost until the end.

*shakes head*

Konjad said:

Is Diablo a cRPG?

Diablo 2 was one of the games I spend many hours playing it several years ago but I completely lost interest later and now I do not care about Diablo 3. I'll just remember D2 as a good game.

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I agree with that. I remember wasting so much time playing D1 to finally realise how pointless it was. Like comparing french cuisine to fast food : empty, tasteless and dangerous for the health. I did not even bother trying D2 and I doubt I will be playing D3.

As for the dark gritty thing, it's part of the game. I's hell, with undead, devil and such. I expect it to be dark, with plenty of dismembered corpse, pool of blood and all. If it's not your cup of tea, there is plenty of light crpg around. It's not "what rpgs are growing to", it would be D3 returning to it roots.

Respec = Total devastation of this game..

Period.

agreed... i think ='.'=

On one paw, who doesnt want to fix an accidentally nerfed toon after hours of play, but on the other it kinda takes the meaning out of carefully building up a good character. Why even bother, just go along plunking away at skills until something doesnt work, then turn around and change it to something that does.

May work for some, but I'm personally a little too RPG for that...

It depends, really. To give another example, harsher death penalties with hefty experience loss can make for really thrilling gameplay - an MMO I played once was like that (Tibia), exploring the wilderness or hunting dangerous monsters was totally exciting, even though it meant that the lag monster was a real threat. I've never felt that in WoW, where you simply stand up and try again with only minor losses after you died - but WoW has other gameplay mechanics that may or may not make up for it.

In regards to character skills in Diablo, mind that the designers could build the game around the assumption that you can respec. Then, if game complexity is a constant, making one area of the game easier means that another would get harder or new stuff is added, or vice versa. That's mostly how WoW developed over the years. They keep simplifying things, but at the same time they introduce other elements that have to be considered.

All that said, I'd welcome more long-term challenges like no respec etc. too. Maybe they've planned that for some kind of hard mode in Diablo? Hard modes are all the rage in WoW, nowadays, so I wouldn't worry too much about it yet.

Respec could always cost experience. Say like 10-15% of all gathered (instead of 100%). The reinc skill in som muds used to work that way very successfully.