Diablo 3 - Followers Revealed, Trailer, Interviews

Blizzard has revealed a new followers system in Diablo III, with information and a trailer at the official site (thanks Zohaib for a similar link).
IGN follows (sorry) up with a preview on the topic:

Blizzard lead content designer Kevin Martens says the Followers will be active participants during your journey, often commenting on quests and environments, conversing with townsfolk and offering up hints. You can bring one Follower with you outside of towns, and each will have access to 12 skills, four of which can be active at a time. Their armor will upgrade over time and change in appearance when it does, and you can slot in rings, amulets and weapons. Each Follower will also get a distinct special item slot that lets then equip gear nobody else, including you, can.

…and FZ.se and GamePlanet have interviews (thanks Blue's):

Leonard Boyarsky: We're really excited to talk about the followers today, they really add a lot to gameplay, not only strategically, but also in really fleshing out the world as a living breathing place.
There are many aspects to them that really enliven the gameplay experience. There's a templar that's going to take a lot of damage for you, but if you're a barbarian you can choose to have him healing because you don't need someone up-front taking a lot of damage for you. If you're playing more of a ranged class, a wizard or somebody like that, you're going to use him more up-front.
We also have a scoundrel, which is the classic rogue archetype. Very humorous, very scoundrelly in his personality! He's a ranged character, and does a lot of damage such as poison multi-shots, things like that.
And we have the enchantress, she's kind of a buffing follower: she'll amplify your damage, lower enemies’ resistance and charm your enemies so they fight on your side for a while.
But basically the main thing we're getting across here is that you can pick and choose their skills as you level up and that changes their gameplay mechanics to sit better with your game style, how you're playing your character.
So there's that aspect of them but they also really bring the game world to life. When you're running around the world they comment on what's going on and comment on places in the world, and really give you a lot of background. That way you don't have to sit down and read lore books or things like that if you're not inclined to do so.

More information.

Nice, I like it. Way better than the old henchmen.

I am hoping that there's at least some kind of minimal attitude control, like "defensive" "aggressive", etc. Pacing is everything in an action rpg, you cant have some idiot NPC running off and stirring up an entire army of the enemy when you arent ready.

Same for me and ditto for the attitude control or some basic tactics setup.

I'm preparing to be disappointed by this game, and partly because I suspect I'll be surprised by Torchlight 2. I feel T2 team put a lot too much the focus on Multiplayer reducing the pure fun of T2, but since I have read some dev comments about non linearity and huge dungeons or world, a few hope came back.

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
Nice, I like it. Way better than the old henchmen.

I am hoping that there's at least some kind of minimal attitude control, like "defensive" "aggressive", etc. Pacing is everything in an action rpg, you cant have some idiot NPC running off and stirring up an entire army of the enemy when you arent ready.

They have stated that there is no "aggressive"/"defensive" mode, per se; however, by choosing different skills and skill combos, the behaviors of the followers will change. So, that should give some limited control. I get the feeling that you will not be able to have an aggressive healer/buffer or a defensive beserker, but, rather, have your followers use offensive and defensive skill sets. I don't know if I made that clear…experiencing a post-frappuccino crash (screw you, Starbucks, and your 74 g of sugar metabolism-bomb; never again).

The Enchantress animation looks bad imo

The Scoundrel & Templar look ok though.

The color seems off (too washed out like the tint is all fuggled up)

Basically not impressed with what's shone here at all really.

Glad to have Followers aka Merc's but I certainly hope this isn't an example of the way the game is shaping up to look in semi-final stages.

Guess we'll see…

Diablo3. How could I NOT play it. Closest thing to a real-time coop roguelike.

I've heard ppl say "theres so many diablo clones", but there just isn't. The ones there are all are awful.

Hard to be excited about a henchman with improved AI. Hard to be excited about D3 in fact It's shaping up to be D2 with a few tweaks and better graphics - the same as SC2 as compared to its predecessor… and I found SC2 dreadfully unoriginal and boring.

Regardless, it's good to hear from Leonard.

^this, sort of. I'm hoping for significant gameplay evolution from Blizzard.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
^this, sort of. I'm hoping for significant gameplay evolution from Blizzard.

I'm hoping not I just want Diablo 2 with better graphics, better environments and a new story. Why significantly change the gameplay when that was the best thing?

I admit to not having been following it closely, but hasn't this game been in development for 10 years? I don't think anything short of a holodeck simulation can justify that length of a development cycle.

Was it more the internal shakeups at Blizzard and shifting focus to the MMO division that held this game up?

Originally Posted by kalniel
I'm hoping not I just want Diablo 2 with better graphics, better environments and a new story. Why significantly change the gameplay when that was the best thing?

Because I am bored with it.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Because I am bored with it.

Hehe fair enough I've not been playing much Diablo 2 recently though

Just looking for a little innovation, to add another dimension to the gameplay, not wholesale changes/"streamlining"…