Fansite Press Conference for Diablo 3 and WoW (Saturday)

[Seth]

Well, even though the Fansite Press Conference was for both Diablo III and WoW, since this is a Diablo fansite I will only cover the Diablo portions. Admittedly, information from this was sadly scant, but let's try to make the best of what we got of it, especially in light of how much we've gotten this whole weekend.

The last reported-on event of the BlizzCon took place today as the day began to set over in California at the Anaheim Convention Center. The Press Conference was limited only to fansite representatives, of which ours for this whole event have been Silversurfnstud and Mockery.

The first bit of news might come as a bit of a turn-off. It has been confirmed that player-made mods will "not be in Diablo III". What this means is somewhat nebulous, since obviously player-made mods will not be an integrated part of the game when you buy it, but I would venture to guess that this means that it will be harder for such mods to be made. This is mostly a let down, I feel, since mods were a big part of Diablo II after players played the game to death over it's decade-long lifespan.

In Diablo II, we saw the return of the three Diablo I heroes, the Warrior, Sorcerer, and Rogue, as the Lord of Terror, the False Summoner, and Blood Raven, respectively. It would appear that the same can be said of the relation of Diablo II to Diablo III, as it has been promised that we will be seeing Diablo II characters returning as NPC's in the coming game:

Originally Posted by Silversurfnstud

Blizzard says Diablo 2 characters will make a NPC return in Diablo 3

In Diablo II, fans and players traveled around the world of Sanctuary to various areas, some large cities and some isolated retreats against the forces of Hell. In this areas, some more than others, we saw that there were many NPC's in the cities, but the vast majority of them were not interactive or speaking. However, in Diablo III it would appear that we will be seeing more dynamic NPC's in-game:

Originally Posted by Mockery

Lots of NPCs though, some of whom send you on mini-quests

When asked about the number of mini quests in the area of the demo alone (a short area in the Borderlands), it can be discerned that we will be seeing plenty more quests, as previously stated by Blizzard, than in either of the two older installments:

Originally Posted by Mockery

Hard to say how many [quests] overall, I wouldn't be surprised if they had anywhere from 15-20 mini-quests in the demo depending when you played

If you would like an idea of how some of these quests played out, well, they seem to be action-packed:

Originally Posted by Mockery

my favorite was killing all the occultists and freeing their slaves though. very gory and nonstop action ... Escaping the collapsing dungeon (a timed 3-minute quest) was challenging too, especially if you tried fighting enemies and opening chests. Most people agreed the best strategy was to just RUN ... There's also a cool quest, which i mentioned before, where you have to kill a giant Dune Thrasher (basically, a sand shark creature) that ate some poor guy's son for lunch. You then return the son's jewels to the grieving father for a bunch of experience. Usually levels you up

Another change from previous games in the series with the new game is that quests will be failable, some even with dire consequences if you cannot complete them within a specified timeframe:

Originally Posted by Mockery

it tells you that you failed, or you die depending on the situation. If your time expires in that collapsing dungeon, you die

If anyone would like more on the fright-factor of the playable demo, in addition to more-than-necessary gore, we can bve expecting anything from impaled corpses to hanging bodies:

Originally Posted by Mockery

I saw dead people hanging, I saw dead people impaled on spears, I saw dead people on torture racks, I saw splatters 'n guts where I'm sure somebody died a horribly painful death... the works. They're not holding anything back when it comes to splattertastic gore in this game

Silversurfnstud then asked about the female Monk when he could get a question in, and Blizzard replied saying that information on the female Monk will be released soon in a small announcement. Hopefully that will be following shortly after the BlizzCon has come to a close. And for any of you still questioning the implementation of female Monks, which obviously do not exist in our world:

Originally Posted by Mockery

people were askin Blizzard how there can be female monks in Diablo 3 when they don't exist in the real world. So that's why Blizzard was saying Diablo is "their world" and they can have female monks if they want to

On the death mechanic, which may or may not be concrete at this point, so far there are no penalties for death (like in previous games, where experience and/or gold paid for your decease), although we may be seeing an interesting new type of potion that could add a new element of cooperative play:

Originally Posted by Mockery

If a ally used a potion of revival you would spawn where you died. If no ally revived you you respawned 5 seconds later at your last checkpoint

Some other things of note were a new modifier which would add a percentage to your magic damage (Silversurfnstud reported a percentage as high as 49% on an amulet), Quest Items are as of now the color previously kept for Sets- green, and it would seem that Town Portals have been officially cut from the game:

Originally Posted by Mockery

Town Portals Have officially been Cut out of d3, They stated they thought they took away from the action. They also stated a waypoint like system would be returning

[likwidsteel]

Phenoix Downs...
In my Diablo?!

Haha, anyway, it's great to hear all this news. The only thing I'm iffy about is the quest failing. I obviously don't know enough about it, but it seems kind of... Extreme. I would also love to know what they're doing to either offset or replace town portals and their importance in the previous installments, if this already wasn't explained.

You also have a typo that I notcied, bve instead of be. No biggie. =]

[interception]

Tasty!

Hope removing town portals won't add to insanely long runs.

[Valtonis]

No town portals is a big deal.
we better have a huge huge inventory space to store all the stuff we find

[Seeder]

After playing D2 again in SP i cant seriously found a more needed thing then the TP, it saves you alot of time from dying.

With that said i dont think i needs to return, if they get another system going that works good im fine with that. And it takes alot more stratgy to play when you have to chose from going back to town at some times instead of all the time when you get ganked by mobs.

[GWeizman]

Originally Posted by Seeder

After playing D2 again in SP i cant seriously found a more needed thing then the TP, it saves you alot of time from dying.

That's pretty much that whole point in deleting them - it gives you an easy way of escaping any situation, which kinda kills strategy. You go in a very difficult dungeon, saying "oh well, I'll go in there anyways and just TP myself out if it's too hard."

[Ranim]

Originally Posted by GWeizman

That's pretty much that whole point in deleting them - it gives you an easy way of escaping any situation, which kinda kills strategy. You go in a very difficult dungeon, saying "oh well, I'll go in there anyways and just TP myself out if it's too hard."

They have waypoints too. If you played Titan Quest you know what im talking about.... that basically eliminates the need for the portals....

[Xhawk]

Wow ... no town portals ?? Definitly going to need to get used to that .. I guess it all depends on how spaced apart the waypoints are. And it would seem that constantly gaining loot then a quick TP back to town to cash in, might not be able to be done constantly.

And if Quest items are green .. what color will set items be ? Thats going to throw me off for sure. I think it will for most players who are locked in to what the colors mean.

[Paladin88]

They said there would be multiple entry and exit points to and from areas, dungeons etc. and seeing how maps will be mostly "randomly" generated they may finally be able to fulfill the "unprecedented replayability" part they claim even on this Diablo 1 cd box I'm holding right now: "Diablo creates a unique labyrinth every time you play".
Heh we'll see


As for portals being canceled for now.... well I'm not too sure why, but perhaps item drops and placement of waypoints are so perfectly balanced out now so you don't need extra space in the tetris bag so no need for returning to town to sell stuff either

Just wondering what type of dash we'll have available to evade dangers while fighting boss monsters for instance, but since there will no body to "pickup" after we die, maybe there's no reason for portals idk.

Another thing nobody asked about was what is going on now with keys and locked chests/doors etc. Really wanted to know about that.



@Question to people who played the demo: After you died and got spawned at the appropriate waypoint or whatever, let's say you had to continue through an area that you "cleaned" already.... were there ANY number of monsters there (even a few) again or were mutilated bodies the only inhabitants?
@Another question: How long did the fallen corpses of enemies continue to be visible on screen after you killed them? And were blood splatters PERMANENT?

ty

[Daaavid]

Damn, no tp scrolls!!

I'm a real packrat, I can't move to another area without looting at least the most valuable items. I'm afraid that my inventory will be full of items before I can find a waypont to sell them.

My only hope is that the items lasts a good ammount of time on ground so i'll be abble to travel 100 miles just to grab the items left behind