First let me just say: Awesome is too cheap a word to describe the feeling that overwhelmed me the moment I loaded the splash page expecting to see the same old ice-lich we've grown accustomed to, only to have Diablo III rise up out of fire in it's place. Immediately I began scouring the news page looking to grab up any bit of information I could about this game, whose announcement can only be described as "EPIC." I then came to realize how much of a waiting game it's going to be for this as I can't wait to get my hands on it. I will be scrounging for every little piece of information they reveal, jumping on it like a starving dog the moment they let it go. Already this game looks amazing and it is only poised to get better.
Many things right now are unclear, and rightly so. Blizzard is dangling information in front of us, keeping our attention piqued for any sort of revelation they might give. For now, we know a few of the game locations, small pieces of the story, and some game-play details. What I'd like to talk about first, and what I'm sure is on everyone's mind, is the character classes.
CLASSES
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So far Blizzard has revealed to us two, and I'm not at all surprised by their choice to show them off. The Barbarian is by all means the staple fighter of the franchise. In my many years playing Diablo II, I think it fair to say that they were incredibly popular, perhaps more-so than any other class. So it seems fitting that Blizzard start off by showing us a class that I'm sure we all have played and are accustomed to, just to show us how things are different yet still familiar. That's one class I agree with bringing back.
The other class they showed off was the Witch-Doctor. This character is the new Necromancer, plain and simple. Don't expect Blizzard to announce the Necro as another playable class (sorry those of you who were hoping they would). The fact is, they stated they are going to try to make the classes even more unique from each other (read: different) this time around, and the With-Doctor is everything the Necro was from Diablo II...plus a little more. Even his origin and backstory are very similar. That said, he looks to be a worthy successor. I imagine part of the decision to make the change was so that they could implement new skills to the class that wouldn't make sense for a Necro to have, yet still keep the most awesome (and/or unique) skills from the Necromancer class. The end result looks to be something even more defined and purposeful than his predecessor, with even more variation in his skill-set. This to me is a win. I'm sorry those of you who still want them to announce a Necromancer, I can sympathize as the Necro was my favorite class from D2, but at the end of the day I'm glad they went with decision and I look forward to trying out the Witch Doctor for myself.
Now for the fun part. Speculation about the other 3 classes who have yet to be named. As said before, Blizzard wants to make each class as unique as possible when compared to the other classes. In other words, the way they play and the skills they used will be nothing alike. In Diablo II, they already did this to a certain degree, and it would make sense to me to use that as a platform for narrowing down the prospective classes who have yet to be announced since they have a strong chance of following the same distinctions, and the two classes we know supports this theory. So basically, we'll have a paladin, sorcerer and amazon class. Not necessarily those exact classes mind you, but they'll be similar.
What I mean by this is, for example, the Paladin's skills were to use Auras, heal party members, and use holy spells, as well as melee fighting. So chances are we'll have a class who will fulfill this same role through similar means. The Barbarian's focus seems to be on Axes--at least that's if I recall correctly--so my assumption is that we'll see this class's focus be on swords. Or...maybe that will be a weapon assigned to another class. Anything is possible at this point. In addition, we will also see a class whose focus is on ranged attacking (like the amazon) and spell casting (like the sorcereress). But, like the Necromancer turned to With Doctor, we might see small differences in these classes from Diablo II.
Instead of an Amazon, maybe a Ranger. Not only would he be highly skilled with a bow, but he could also have an affinity for nature (adding a new twist to the class), which would allow him to use nature spells and skills. Perhaps this class could replace both the Amazon AND the Paladin. Healing and Aura spells would fall in with Nature, and he could be a master of the sword as well. Maybe a little overpowered? Maybe...Then again it was Blizzard themselves who said something along the lines of there being no such thing as making a class too powerful. Still, some sort of balance might be necessary here, and for the sake of my scenario, we'll just assume he is first and foremost his role would be as an archer, and his sword skills and nature spells would come second. That is, the same way the Paladin's spells took a back seat to his melee comabt, the Rangers skills would do the same to his archery. I think a Ranger would make for a very fun class to play. Essentially, he would play like an Amazon, but aura's like that of a paladin, and nature skills like those of the Druid (from LoD and/or WoW).
The next class would be our spellcaster. Our primary source of spell damage. Honestly, it doesn't matter what you call it, mage/sorcerer/whathaveyou, this class is a staple (just like the Barbarian) and we all know that they will be in the game and will be a master of the elements. So instead of talking about what they can do to 'change' this class, instead I'd like to talk about how they can 'add' to it. What I'd like to see is some more diversification. Yes, the three traditional elements are nice, but let's see some more. How about wind and earth elemental spells? For example, a cyclone, razor wind, or sand blast. For earth, spells that explode rocks, create spikes from the ground, etc...These are just some examples, but the inclusion of other elements to their sorcerer's bag o' tricks would be a welcome and imo necessary addition for Diablo III.
Ok, so far we have the Barbarian class, the Paladin/Amazon/Druid class (Ranger),
the Necromancer class (With Doctor), and the Sorceress class covered. That's all 6 classes from D2. We still have one more class left to make 5, and one class which I have yet to mention from LoD. The Assassin. This final class will be your master of ninjustu, karate, kung fu, and all your other lovely martial arts (in a sense). They will be adept at using traps, trickery, and special attacks to vanquish their foes. To get an idea for the skill-set of this class, take a look at the Assassin from LoD and the Rogue from WoW. Shadowstep, backstab, shadow clones, shoku, caltrops, shurikens, fuma-shurikens, kunai, vanish, the list goes on. This will be a very fun class to play if only for the association with ninjas alone, but it will be much more than that. No other class will give you the satisfaction of stealthing behind your enemy and slitting their throat.
So there you have it. Those are the three classes I would like to see announced. Each is totally unique, yet incredibly fun to play, and are well within Blizzard's realm of fantasy. And even if we don't get those exact three, as long as Blizzard goes along with this philosophy, I know that I'll be happy.
Now that I've cover the biggest topic, next I'd like to talk a little bit about the environments, story, and gameplay, but I seem to be running low on time. I am going to just briefly give some thoughts I had, and I'll touch on them more at a later time.
One big question which has yet to be answered, at least to my knowledge, is who the bosses in this game are. I mean, yes we can all assume that Diablo is back, somehow...which also begs the question, why is he back? Not that we don't love him, but he WAS destroyed in Diablo II for good (or so we thought). Who brought him back...and how? Also, there is mention of the player having to fight the forces of Heaven (which is hinted at in the synopsis). Is there a chance we'll be fighting Tyrael, or even God himself? That would be something. I'm anxious to learn more about the story behind this game, and what events brought it into place, as that will explain much about Diablo's revival and just what the characters are fighting for.
Another thought is how the game will be set up. Will this be another game you can breeze through in a few days, or will it be drawn out longer? Yes, the random loot and dungeons extends the replay value and life of the game well beyond that, but will we be left feeling empty after defeating Diablo with no true goal other than to level up your character? Or will the game be much longer than the mere 5 acts we had in D2, and will there be bosses even beyond Diablo? For that matter, will there even be Acts? What I would like to see, personally, are bosses who you can not simply just go and kill when you please. This isn't to say I don't want bosses who you can go to at will, but I would like to see the addition of other bosses who spawn randomly, not all that unlike Uber Diablo. Imagine the excitement of going through a dungeon and getting a quest to kill a dreadful terror who has suddenly emerged from the depths of hell (or heaven). This is a rare occurrence, as it's not everyday playing this game you are met with such a task. Not only is this boss incredibly rare, but he is also incredibly hard to kill, and the rewards for doing so are ALSO loot that will be well worth your time. Sure, you've killed Diablo 100+ times, but can you kill this guy? Better call in some friends to help you! It's moments like these that I would love to see and I think will give the game some true replay value beyond what we've come to expect from the past two iterations of the franchise, and another thing I think that should be done to evolve the game to be where it needs to be in today's gaming world of unending mmo's.
Finally, I would just like to say that I am incredibly excited that they are bringing back the monestary from Diablo 1. This was one area I would have loved to explore in Diablo 2, but sadly it had vanished from Tristram when you re-visit the town. My hope is that we will get to once again fully explore the Labyrinth beneath the town and relive some of the past glories we once had, while experiences new terrors which might lurk inside.
This is all I have time to reflect on for now, though I will add more of my thoughts as more news arrives, and I will be happy to reply to any comments if you would like to share them. Thank you for reading.
(added) GRAPHICS
-------------------------
Browsing the forums I've notice a lot of people are upset with the graphics in the game. I can understand their concern, as Diablo has always been a game about...well, Diablo. He's the devil, he's evil, and he's dark. Right now the game does seem to be much more colorful and less grittier than the prior games. First, please just let me point out that the game has a long way to go before it's released, and typically in the game development cycle, the polish on the graphics comes last. In many cases, they aren't truly finalized until just a few months before the release of a game. Bearing this in mind, I think the game looks decent for what it is. I do hope that Blizzard does darken the tone a bit before it's released, and I think when they do polish it the game will be much more satisfying aesthetically.
I think a lot of the cause for concern is that the textures are very simple and colorful right now. The dungeon looks less like something that hasn't been visited in 100 years, and I think a large part of that is because of the textures. Once the artists finish with the more important task of creating all the monsters/levels/etc...they will go back and polish everything, adding more dirt, blood, and grit that we all want. The lighting will be taken into account as well, making things seem more appropriate. Additionally many items and objects are simply placeholders that will be swapped out later in development and should by no means be considered the final product.
I suppose the reason I'm writing this is to alleviate any fears that Diablo III is going to turn out looking like WoW. It's not. And don't get me wrong, I am not saying this in an effort to stop the protests about the graphics, in fact I actually encourage them. It helps to give Blizzard insight into what their fans want out of them and open communication like that is ALWAYS a good thing in my book. Just please (and I'm not addressing any person in particular here) don't be stupid about it.
They don't really need soulstones anymore cause the worldstone is gone.
At the end of Act IV it says "Diablo and Mephisto have been banished back into the Black Abyss that spawned them and the corrupted Soulstones are no more"
It'd be cool if there were two ways to go to hell - one by exploring the land, and eventually getting wrapped up in an epic adventure and taken to hell by an angel (D2 style) or by simply descending downwards, through the labyrinth, catacombs, and caves.
I hope the fifth character is not an assassin, but a demonologist. I think Necro would be covered by the Witch Doctor AND Demonologist. Plus I think he'd be a lot more fun to play.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Ranger - Ranged Weapon Mastery (fire a bow or javelins like a machine gun!), Traps (MK style!), Pets (lions, tigers, and bears oh my!) - physical damage based
Demonologist - Bone Spells (Necro style!), Avatar (shapeshift into a demon!), Furies (evil spirits that hang around you, giving party bonuses) - mix of physical damage and magic
LEAP ATTACK!!!!! PLAGUE OF TOADS!!!!!
SLOW TIME!!!!!
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Many things right now are unclear, and rightly so. Blizzard is dangling information in front of us, keeping our attention piqued for any sort of revelation they might give. For now, we know a few of the game locations, small pieces of the story, and some game-play details. What I'd like to talk about first, and what I'm sure is on everyone's mind, is the character classes.
CLASSES
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So far Blizzard has revealed to us two, and I'm not at all surprised by their choice to show them off. The Barbarian is by all means the staple fighter of the franchise. In my many years playing Diablo II, I think it fair to say that they were incredibly popular, perhaps more-so than any other class. So it seems fitting that Blizzard start off by showing us a class that I'm sure we all have played and are accustomed to, just to show us how things are different yet still familiar. That's one class I agree with bringing back.
The other class they showed off was the Witch-Doctor. This character is the new Necromancer, plain and simple. Don't expect Blizzard to announce the Necro as another playable class (sorry those of you who were hoping they would). The fact is, they stated they are going to try to make the classes even more unique from each other (read: different) this time around, and the With-Doctor is everything the Necro was from Diablo II...plus a little more. Even his origin and backstory are very similar. That said, he looks to be a worthy successor. I imagine part of the decision to make the change was so that they could implement new skills to the class that wouldn't make sense for a Necro to have, yet still keep the most awesome (and/or unique) skills from the Necromancer class. The end result looks to be something even more defined and purposeful than his predecessor, with even more variation in his skill-set. This to me is a win. I'm sorry those of you who still want them to announce a Necromancer, I can sympathize as the Necro was my favorite class from D2, but at the end of the day I'm glad they went with decision and I look forward to trying out the Witch Doctor for myself.
Now for the fun part. Speculation about the other 3 classes who have yet to be named. As said before, Blizzard wants to make each class as unique as possible when compared to the other classes. In other words, the way they play and the skills they used will be nothing alike. In Diablo II, they already did this to a certain degree, and it would make sense to me to use that as a platform for narrowing down the prospective classes who have yet to be announced since they have a strong chance of following the same distinctions, and the two classes we know supports this theory. So basically, we'll have a paladin, sorcerer and amazon class. Not necessarily those exact classes mind you, but they'll be similar.
What I mean by this is, for example, the Paladin's skills were to use Auras, heal party members, and use holy spells, as well as melee fighting. So chances are we'll have a class who will fulfill this same role through similar means. The Barbarian's focus seems to be on Axes--at least that's if I recall correctly--so my assumption is that we'll see this class's focus be on swords. Or...maybe that will be a weapon assigned to another class. Anything is possible at this point. In addition, we will also see a class whose focus is on ranged attacking (like the amazon) and spell casting (like the sorcereress). But, like the Necromancer turned to With Doctor, we might see small differences in these classes from Diablo II.
Instead of an Amazon, maybe a Ranger. Not only would he be highly skilled with a bow, but he could also have an affinity for nature (adding a new twist to the class), which would allow him to use nature spells and skills. Perhaps this class could replace both the Amazon AND the Paladin. Healing and Aura spells would fall in with Nature, and he could be a master of the sword as well. Maybe a little overpowered? Maybe...Then again it was Blizzard themselves who said something along the lines of there being no such thing as making a class too powerful. Still, some sort of balance might be necessary here, and for the sake of my scenario, we'll just assume he is first and foremost his role would be as an archer, and his sword skills and nature spells would come second. That is, the same way the Paladin's spells took a back seat to his melee comabt, the Rangers skills would do the same to his archery. I think a Ranger would make for a very fun class to play. Essentially, he would play like an Amazon, but aura's like that of a paladin, and nature skills like those of the Druid (from LoD and/or WoW).
The next class would be our spellcaster. Our primary source of spell damage. Honestly, it doesn't matter what you call it, mage/sorcerer/whathaveyou, this class is a staple (just like the Barbarian) and we all know that they will be in the game and will be a master of the elements. So instead of talking about what they can do to 'change' this class, instead I'd like to talk about how they can 'add' to it. What I'd like to see is some more diversification. Yes, the three traditional elements are nice, but let's see some more. How about wind and earth elemental spells? For example, a cyclone, razor wind, or sand blast. For earth, spells that explode rocks, create spikes from the ground, etc...These are just some examples, but the inclusion of other elements to their sorcerer's bag o' tricks would be a welcome and imo necessary addition for Diablo III.
Ok, so far we have the Barbarian class, the Paladin/Amazon/Druid class (Ranger),
the Necromancer class (With Doctor), and the Sorceress class covered. That's all 6 classes from D2. We still have one more class left to make 5, and one class which I have yet to mention from LoD. The Assassin. This final class will be your master of ninjustu, karate, kung fu, and all your other lovely martial arts (in a sense). They will be adept at using traps, trickery, and special attacks to vanquish their foes. To get an idea for the skill-set of this class, take a look at the Assassin from LoD and the Rogue from WoW. Shadowstep, backstab, shadow clones, shoku, caltrops, shurikens, fuma-shurikens, kunai, vanish, the list goes on. This will be a very fun class to play if only for the association with ninjas alone, but it will be much more than that. No other class will give you the satisfaction of stealthing behind your enemy and slitting their throat.
So there you have it. Those are the three classes I would like to see announced. Each is totally unique, yet incredibly fun to play, and are well within Blizzard's realm of fantasy. And even if we don't get those exact three, as long as Blizzard goes along with this philosophy, I know that I'll be happy.
Now that I've cover the biggest topic, next I'd like to talk a little bit about the environments, story, and gameplay, but I seem to be running low on time. I am going to just briefly give some thoughts I had, and I'll touch on them more at a later time.
One big question which has yet to be answered, at least to my knowledge, is who the bosses in this game are. I mean, yes we can all assume that Diablo is back, somehow...which also begs the question, why is he back? Not that we don't love him, but he WAS destroyed in Diablo II for good (or so we thought). Who brought him back...and how? Also, there is mention of the player having to fight the forces of Heaven (which is hinted at in the synopsis). Is there a chance we'll be fighting Tyrael, or even God himself? That would be something. I'm anxious to learn more about the story behind this game, and what events brought it into place, as that will explain much about Diablo's revival and just what the characters are fighting for.
Another thought is how the game will be set up. Will this be another game you can breeze through in a few days, or will it be drawn out longer? Yes, the random loot and dungeons extends the replay value and life of the game well beyond that, but will we be left feeling empty after defeating Diablo with no true goal other than to level up your character? Or will the game be much longer than the mere 5 acts we had in D2, and will there be bosses even beyond Diablo? For that matter, will there even be Acts? What I would like to see, personally, are bosses who you can not simply just go and kill when you please. This isn't to say I don't want bosses who you can go to at will, but I would like to see the addition of other bosses who spawn randomly, not all that unlike Uber Diablo. Imagine the excitement of going through a dungeon and getting a quest to kill a dreadful terror who has suddenly emerged from the depths of hell (or heaven). This is a rare occurrence, as it's not everyday playing this game you are met with such a task. Not only is this boss incredibly rare, but he is also incredibly hard to kill, and the rewards for doing so are ALSO loot that will be well worth your time. Sure, you've killed Diablo 100+ times, but can you kill this guy? Better call in some friends to help you! It's moments like these that I would love to see and I think will give the game some true replay value beyond what we've come to expect from the past two iterations of the franchise, and another thing I think that should be done to evolve the game to be where it needs to be in today's gaming world of unending mmo's.
Finally, I would just like to say that I am incredibly excited that they are bringing back the monestary from Diablo 1. This was one area I would have loved to explore in Diablo 2, but sadly it had vanished from Tristram when you re-visit the town. My hope is that we will get to once again fully explore the Labyrinth beneath the town and relive some of the past glories we once had, while experiences new terrors which might lurk inside.
This is all I have time to reflect on for now, though I will add more of my thoughts as more news arrives, and I will be happy to reply to any comments if you would like to share them. Thank you for reading.
(added) GRAPHICS
-------------------------
Browsing the forums I've notice a lot of people are upset with the graphics in the game. I can understand their concern, as Diablo has always been a game about...well, Diablo. He's the devil, he's evil, and he's dark. Right now the game does seem to be much more colorful and less grittier than the prior games. First, please just let me point out that the game has a long way to go before it's released, and typically in the game development cycle, the polish on the graphics comes last. In many cases, they aren't truly finalized until just a few months before the release of a game. Bearing this in mind, I think the game looks decent for what it is. I do hope that Blizzard does darken the tone a bit before it's released, and I think when they do polish it the game will be much more satisfying aesthetically.
I think a lot of the cause for concern is that the textures are very simple and colorful right now. The dungeon looks less like something that hasn't been visited in 100 years, and I think a large part of that is because of the textures. Once the artists finish with the more important task of creating all the monsters/levels/etc...they will go back and polish everything, adding more dirt, blood, and grit that we all want. The lighting will be taken into account as well, making things seem more appropriate. Additionally many items and objects are simply placeholders that will be swapped out later in development and should by no means be considered the final product.
I suppose the reason I'm writing this is to alleviate any fears that Diablo III is going to turn out looking like WoW. It's not. And don't get me wrong, I am not saying this in an effort to stop the protests about the graphics, in fact I actually encourage them. It helps to give Blizzard insight into what their fans want out of them and open communication like that is ALWAYS a good thing in my book. Just please (and I'm not addressing any person in particular here) don't be stupid about it.
CyberPunk RP Nexus
...since the worldstone was destroyed.
They respawned to their soulstone before.
...errr thats what I said.
Kudos.
Thanks Jeremiel for clarifying that for me.
I hope the fifth character is not an assassin, but a demonologist. I think Necro would be covered by the Witch Doctor AND Demonologist. Plus I think he'd be a lot more fun to play.
Demonologist - Bone Spells (Necro style!), Avatar (shapeshift into a demon!), Furies (evil spirits that hang around you, giving party bonuses) - mix of physical damage and magic
LEAP ATTACK!!!!!
PLAGUE OF TOADS!!!!!
SLOW TIME!!!!!