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All too often the cinematic side of games are overlooked by the majority of players. In many cases, especially in todays day and age, more effort is placed into these short hyper-detailed cinematographs than any scene of similar length from most full length movies. An exceptionally executed short clip often suffers due to its length. Being so short, it can be easily overlooked, or skipped without much second thought.

What I'd like to help get across in this article is how much collaboration and skill it takes to create a truly fantastic cinematic. To fabricate such a believable, and detailed world through a computer takes an insane amount of time and precision. It could take thousands of man hours to create a three minute clip as seen in The Black Soulstone. I'll do my best to convoy the process as talked about at this panel. Also for the sake of not turning this article into a picture book, I'm going to link relative picture to text, so click the links to check out the pics.

Before the presentation had even really begun, we found out that The Black Soulstone clip (which is not the full clip due to spoilers) is only 3 out of 27 minutes of cinematic cutscenes that will be in Diablo III. I don't know about you guys, but 27 minutes of cutscenes like this is in itself enough for me to get a bag of popcorn and watch one by one.


The most important part of a cinematic is how well it tells a story. This process starts off as storyboards, a collective effort from the team to sketch out in minimal detail scenes they want to link together forming the cinematic. A directer and their crew sits down and forms the storyboard, with close collaboration of the relative crews that will help work on it. This process covers the entire production from start to finish. Be it visual, musical, or character progression; everything has to be planned in the storyboard.

An example given was how Leah is afraid of Azmodan. How she expresses this fear has to be planned in the storyboard. This one small choice can make a huge impact on Leahs' character progression. If she screams and freaks out, this says something completely different about her than if she just flinches and shies away. Camera angles and focal points also help convoy character emotion. Again, this is where it all begins.



Color Scripting

Color has a huge effect on how a scene is perceived, this fact is supported by mentioning there is an entire crew devoted to just color scripting. Diablo with all of its earthy hues is particularly sensitive to this color directing. It is so important in fact that the color translation from early rendering to final production is very often spot on the same.





The development of a character in Diablo III pivots around three main concepts, game relevance, suiting to the story, and available technology. Azmodan has gone through many iterations, from a mix of Angel and Demon, through a kind of warrior look, and finally to the crab/sumo wrestler you see today. This final concept was chosen because it represents all of the seven sins in which Azmodan, the Lord Of Sin encompasses. For example the shape of his body suggests gluttony and greed, while his body decorations suggest pride and vanity.

After a characters concept is complete, it must be brought to life. Through a massive effort from many teams, a character is modeled in 3D, textured & colored, rigged for ease of animation, animated, and tweaked for who knows how long before finally making the directors standard. To state that this is an over-simplification is a understatement.

At this level of professionalism, not everything takes as long as you may think though. For example most of the demon horde you seen in the cinematic was conceptualized and preliminarily modeled in just two days. Life is in the details though, and these details are what take the most time to perfect in these creature models. After initial modeling, the item is passed onto the next team which specializes in texturing. Using the initial 2D concept art, the texture team works on translating that 2D texture into 3D, and accurately spreading it around the creature. They aim to perfectly match the 2D concept, since that is indeed where the director chose to finalize the creature.



Particle Effects

Beyond the character models themselves, there are tons of surrounding particle effects that add just as much "character" to the character as the traditional traits like skin, voice, and attitude do. For example, the smokey effect from the Lich Kings eyes adds a lot of supernatural meaning to him. Another example is the smoke rolling off the demons in the Black Soulstone cinematic. These effects have to be subtle, for if they draw too much attention to themselves it distracts the viewer from much more important things happening on screen.



Reference From Real Life

When you're aiming to make something believable, what better way than to study related things in real life? This is exactly what the cinematic teams do throughout their work. This is done through setting up target textures, lighting effects, skin tones/textures, etc and photographing them in real life. Then after capturing their target images, the team recreates them over the computer. This is painstakingly done brush stroke by brush stroke using various software.



Leah

As with perfecting textures and lighting effects, to perfect a believable rendered human first you must study one. To drive the development of Leah, the teams studied how things appear in real life when under similar conditions to what they wanted to reproduce in the cinematic. In general they setup a photographic environment like the one at the beginning of the cinematic, complete with a stone, a girl (their producer), candles, and great lighting. The photograph was then manipulated to closer match what the director wanted to see as the final result in the cinematic.

Continuing with their study, they took close-up shots of various eyes and facial expressions to better understand how to accurately reproduce a face, which is arguably the hardest thing to do when speaking of realistic art. In Blizzard fashion, they went so much further than just simple photos. They setup a specialized camera rig to capture light exposure, color saturation, and texture mapping of various faces, which they can directly use while creating the character model. From early rendering to near completion takes hundreds and hundreds of tweaks to everything from lighting, to textures, shaders, and many other factors even with the assistance of real life examples.



Facial Animation

As with lighting and texturing, the animation team began their study via photographing relative real life objects. They first took hundreds of photos of different facial expressions to identify how the different facial muscles moved during each expression. Their goal in this was to replicate every muscle in the face into their character model so they would be able to perfectly reproduce different emotions through the character, they reached this goal, and the results speak for themselves.

They did the same thing for eye expressions. When observed closely, the human eyes and eyelids have tiny micro twitches, which we don't even notice until they're not there. When viewing older character models up close in cinematics, something looks off. You can't always place your finger on it, but something tips your brain off that this isn't real, and that negatively effects how that character conveys emotions. It's through these tiny movements that the character comes to life, and suddenly all of their emotions become so much more believable. This can be seen as Leah falls asleep into her dream during the cinematic.

This trend of study also made its way into hand and writing observations. Little things like how a pen indents the paper as you write, or how certain small muscles contract during tiny movements. Through the close collaboration of the animation, rigging, and modeling teams they eventually achieved their goals of a believable character, interacting with a believable world.



Dynamic Systems

Features of a character which constantly change drastically are known as Dynamic Systems. Take hair, and clothes for example. With their success in real life studies, similar simulation techniques were used to perfect hair animation. They tracked down a coworker with similar hair to Leah, found a fan, and went to work replicating movements Leah had to do in the cinematic, with the added effect of wind.

After they had all the info and observations they needed, they moved onto modeling, and animation. Hair poses a problem in that there are hundreds of thousands of strands of air, which are near impossible to compute or individually animate. So instead of dealing with each strand one by one, they start off with very large chunks, maybe five in total. Then they'll break those chunks up to say 200. Those smaller number of strands are what actually move individually. On top of those large strands they add in hair models and effects in order to make it look like there are hundreds of thousands of strands moving.






Another thing the Dynamic Systems Team covers are rigs. Essentially rigs are basic models of the character that are broken down into separate parts and placed on different pivot points to enable the animation team to make the characters move. Think of a rig like an action figure. This process in itself is precision work, since if a model isn't rigged correctly, it will be impossible to creature realistic movements in the end character.

What's interesting is that the movements don't always have to make perfect sense, as long as you're not looking at the entire model. In the scene to the bottom left Azmodan is completely hunched over, which looks reasonable from that camera angle. Now if you zoom out and look at the entire rig to the bottom center, you now see he is actually broken, which says that his movement was impossible speaking realistically.






To make those believable movements, first the team had to observe similar creatures in real life. Sad fact though, nothing on Earth is exactly like Azmodan. So instead, they choice to observe crabs for lower body movements, and sumo wrestlers for his upper body movements. Through excellent creativity they managed to merge these two and were left with a very believable rig.



Azmodan Speaks

Their next production challenge was to get Azmodan to believably speak without any lips. In order to produce sounds such as "P" and "B" you need to have a way to block air flow for a second. It just so happens Azmodan has no lips, so instead they used very pronounced movements of his mandibles and tongue to create relative actions to syllables. The end result comes across great, and adds to his creepy factor during the close-up shots.



The Hordes Of Hell

During the end of the cinematic there are tons of creatures marching around, each seemingly doing their own things. In order to populate the entire screen with great looking creature animations, they needed to use some smoke and mirrors. The creatures in the far back are using very simple animations, which don't have those little detailed movements we see in more important close-up shots. The more important, and unique animations are called "Hero Animations". As the link shows, this classification of animation is not bound to living creatures. Another trick they used in order to create the illusion of every creature having uniqueness, is to individually tweak how they hold their weapons. By tweaking this they create a great silhouette across the entire army, where no two spears are tilted in the exact same direction.



The Right Stuff

Not everything makes it into the final cut, in fact most of the original concepts don't. On of these that they talked about was Azmodans lava drool. They tested all different kind of viscosities until they found one that worked, they added lighting and texture, and even went as far as you add it on the finial model. Even through all this, the end result didn't come across right. They felt it made Azmo feel sloppy, and even comical, two things that are not part of Azmodans characteristics; so they cut it completely. Some effects that did make the final cut for Azmodan include awesome things like active lighting effects from his mouth and eyes along side a heat distortion filter.



Lighting Effects

Lighting effects can make or break everything in a cinematic. During the panel Blizzard mentioned how they adopted the same cutting edge effects major motion picture companies are using. These effects make for great lighting across the entire world, but in particular, faces. No one looks good under a harsh light, it blows out every little detail to an undesirable degree. Through combining the crisp detail of a hard light, and the blended effects of a soft light, they achieved a great shot which looks both crisp and delicate.







A character has many different light sources effecting them at once. The example they showed was of Leah, which is under five completely different light sources when she faces Azmodan in her dream. When combining all of these, they can go back and tweak each one until they are happy with the result. The second type of lighting passes they spoke about are called render elements. These are essentially just the various layers of each shot. Each other these layers have their own effects which add to the shot, but don't effect one another directly.



Bringing Down The Walls

Moving onto the scene where Azmodan brings down the rock wall, revealing his plan to evade Sanctuary, how this was achieved is pretty amazing. Aside from all the lighting effects which had to be changed as the wall comes down, how they broke the wall itself is pretty interesting. They used a shaping technique called Voronoi. Essentially, they place random dots across a plane, draw lines equal distances from these dots, then uses the lines to create organic shapes which look very natural.







It is also worth mentioning that the falling rocks didn't go through any type of physics simulator. The director had a very specific visual in mind, and so every single one of the 40,000+ rocks you see were animated individually as the fell and interacted with each other.


Well that about wraps it up, I hope you enjoyed our journey through the making of the Black Soulstone Cinematic, and learned a little bit about the absurd amount of effort that goes into creating these windows into Sanctuary.



If you missed any of our other Blizzcon coverages, by sure to check out the Blizzcon Hub, and catch up on what happened regarding Diablo III.

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When I found out Angels are their wings, and the armor is just really to identify with them I shivered a little, that's such an amazing concept to me.

Gameplay

With the game drawing tantalizingly close to completion, there wasn't any ground braking announcements in this particular panel, but one could say none were expected. Most, if not all of the game features have been announced prior, even if they have not been detailed yet. So in that light, while nothing completely new was founded, we received a great deal of detail on already existent features.

Achievements & Banner
As the panel opened they jumped right into it, beginning with Achievements. We've heard very little on this front in the past, so any news on them was welcomed. There are three main ways to progress through your achievements.

• Game Progression:

This is rather self explanatory, there will be achievements for progressing through the game such as completing a difficulty, or defeating a boss.

• Obscure Gameplay:

So you've defeated the normal difficulty, neat. How about weaponless, or even gear-less? Such feats of insanity will be rewarded via achievements.

• Longterm Goals:

These goals include things such as completing the Bestiary, a feature while tracks what creatures you've encountered. Or finding every lore book in the game.

Your achievements progress reflects onto your Banner, slowly but surely adding new ribbons, facets, or other features. New ways to personalize your banner may become available through these achievements also. These small additions to your banner themselves expand as you complete more and more achievements. For example, as you progress in a certain category of achievements more gems may start appearing on a ribbon dangling from your banner. Or as you play through more Hardcore content the mound of skulls and bones under your banner will grow.



Crafting

Crafting is getting an overhaul in Diablo III, becoming more viable for any stage of the game. In this topic we got a good amount of confirmation on the abilities that each of our three Artisans will provide.

• Mystic:

This Artisan offers item enchantments. This may ring a bell, as a similar system was in place in Diablo II. With the new system you'll not only be able to enchant your items, but continuously do so, each time rolling better and better stats. This enables a player with enough focus and funds to eventually achieve very high stats on his or her item.

Through these enchantments, you can also take advantage of very off-class type items on your character. An example the developers gave was a Demon Hunter using a one handed axe and a shield, both of which being enchanted with Hatred regeneration, something that wouldn't natural spawn on such weapons. As the Mystic levels up, she will have access to more powerful enchantments, which are dropped as recipes in the game.

• Jeweler:

This old man has very simple, yet essential talents. He can combine Gems, add sockets to items, and remove gems from items. Exactly what scales as he levels isn't entirely clear yet, but one could imagine a few scalable aspects, such as what level gems he can combine, or what level item he can add sockets to.

• Blacksmith:

We know more of this Artisan than the other two, both through more exposure via Blizzard, and presents in the beta. The Blacksmith can forge a huge variety of items, some are unlocked as he levels up, others only through recipes you find as drops. He even has the ability to forge legendary items, some with set values. This is a beautiful thing, since through the randomness of Diablos' drop system, by the time you find every item in a set for a mid-level character, you've likely already out leveled the set, making it useless.

Now through the Blacksmith you'll be able to craft your way to a full set if you're willing to front the needed materials and gold, making those low-mid range set items a viable choice. Besides crafting he can also repair your items, something that will likely need to be done regularly come Inferno, seeing as you loose 10% of your item durability with each death in the game.


PvP: PvP hasn't undergone very much change, which at this stage of the game shows how solid it is at heart. As was discovered a while back, the Arena will now have a team death match style of scoring. Meaning that your lives are infinite, you respawn shortly after each death, and the team with the most kills at the end of the game wins. Exactly how long each round will be isn't clear, though one full game will likely be around ten minute. The system of health globes that spawn at certain points on the map wasn't spoken of, so where they are with that is unknown.

Something that has changed is the amount of players in each match, moving from 3v3 to 4v4. Another useful tidbit of knowledge is that you will not be able to swap skills in between matches. This makes it so a team can adapt their play style to counter an opposing team, without worrying about them having an entirely different skill-set from round to round, making it so comebacks are very possible if a team can adapt efficiently. This forces players to think strategically, instead of just swapping skills to deal with a problem.

Auction House: As known, you'll be able to trade nearly anything you find in-game through the Auction House, be it gold, gems, crafting materials, tombs, etc. Whole character selling will not be available at launch, but will likely be added later on. Search features will be extensive, including a "smart search" which detects common stats across your character and searches for items with similar stats. For the more picky person there will be an advanced search feature where you'll be able to pin point exactly the item you're looking for.


Life Cycle Of Items

With the introduction of the auction house, comes a new level of item recycling that had never been seen in a Diablo game. Whereas in Diablo II items more or less drifted around form player to player endlessly rotating, in Diablo III these items can be transformed into many forms, and then like a Phoenix reborn, take shape into new amazing forms.
In Diablo II the ideal life cycle of an item was as follows: Drop > Wear > Trade > Eventually Sold. That's about as far as it went in the best case scenario. This wouldn't be so terrible if gold had any true value in the game, a purpose.

In Diablo III this is the ideal life cycle of an item: Drop > Wear> Trade > Eventually Salvaged > Crafted into new item > Eventually Sold. Not only are there many more things you can do with an item, but when it is eventually sold for gold, that gold can be used to continue feeding the economy, or even better, sunk into one of the many gold sinks, removing it from the game and delaying the build up of gold in the economy.


Final Game Tuning

Those words have a great ring to them, or maybe just the word "final" being used at all. Tuning, or polishing if you will, comes as the last stage of development. It's where numbers are tweaked, and features are perfected for release. This polishing happens across the entire game, so we'll touch on the interesting topics which were presented.

• Monster Improvements:

The creatures of Sanctuary are a formidable bunch, each with a role to play in the heat of battle. Fulfilling these roles is an important job, and sometimes new roles need to be created to address balancing issues. One of these issues that's very clear for any Diablo player is how casters can often avoid affixes of creatures, such as lightning, thorns, or other short distance AoE effects.

To adress this, the new affix called Mortar was introduced, where a creature will lob fireballs across the screen, endangering casters while flying right over melee characters' heads.

• Passive Skills & Synergies:
  

True to their claims of nothing being final, there have been small tweaks all cross the passive skills. In some cases is may just be a number change, though as they displayed there are a couple of new passive skills to support different builds.

• Synergies:

Another way Blizzard is supporting build diversity is by cutting down on synergies. While synergies may look appealing, they actually drastically decrease the amount of viable builds. This is due to the very nature of them, where if you have one skill you're most likely best off following it up with skills that all have corresponding synergies. This forces the player down a certain path in order to maximize the effects. While they're not removing synergies all together, they will be down-tuning their effects, or removing certain corresponding effects completely.


Class Tuning

With the idea of class specific resources surely came a huge amount of development to get to this point. As with any complex feature, constant polishing is the only way to achieve balance. While each class is fairing well with no major setbacks, small tweaks are being made to adjust how each class handles.

• Barbarian:

The trend Blizzard has noticed in the beta is players will skip the small Fury generators such as Bash or Frenzy in favor for the larger ones like Leap Attack, or Ground Stomp. To account for this the amount of Fury the smaller generators will create is getting bumped up. They also found that come late game the Barb is having a tough time surviving due to the classes' need to be within melee range of creatures. This is a little more complex polish, and will involve a few defensive changes.

• Wizard:

As we've known, a certain section of skills will slowly become less costly as you level, eventually becoming completely free. This system is undergoing small changes which weren't clearly detailed. All spells are also moving to % weapon damage, making weapon more important to casters than before.

A common concern with this change is - well if casters depend on weapon damage, shouldn't I just run around with a two handed axe? - This is being addressed by also having the casting speed rely on weapon speed, so while your attack may do more damage with a two handed axe, your DPS may be less than if you were to use a wand with a lower attack, but faster attack speed. There are also class specific buffs on many casting oriented weapons that could sway a players choice from say a sword, or axe.

• Witch Doctor:

Mana seems to be unlimited in the beta, and at this early stage of the game it essentially is. Though as the game progresses you'll have to make crucial choices that will effect how your Mana will behave. It was stated that if one were so inclined, they could form a build where you do indeed have infinite Mana, though they'd be sacrificing other aspects of the class, such as damage, or defense.

• Monk:

Mantras are now going to have a three second period when first cast where they'll grant double the buff they normally would. This makes them feel like less like a maintenance skill, and more like an active skill that needs to be paid attention to. Combo skills are also undergoing some small changes in their basic functionality, both in how they are combined, and how powerful each level of attack is. For example they plan to increase the range in Deadly Reach to make it more viable.

• Demon Hunter:

As touched on not too long again, the DH will have a completely new Hatred system than as the class does now. At this very moment in the beta Hatred constantly regenerates, though as many have found, you end up constantly low,if not drained of it. To remedy this there will be Hatred generating skills and spending skills, much like Fury. Snares will also see some buffs to better keep enemies at range, or help better preform their role.

While each class have some very specific changes coming, one change is reaching across every class - awesomeness. Through feedback from the community, and internal testing, a lot of players have found skills as a whole don't make them feel as awesome as they'd prefer. Blizzard has heard the cries, and plan to increase the visual effects of many skills, helping enforce the fact that you're a badass demon-slaying demigod.


Difficulties

Many fans have speculated on exactly how difficult each act will be. Some even feel the entire game will be relatively easy. This may be due to the easy content we've seen in the beta, which is indeed very casual. This is by design though, normal difficulty is meant to be a kind of tutorial, which teaches you everything you'll need to know, while not punishing you too hard for making mistakes.

Very casual players will enjoy this first difficulty, while more serious players will find it laughable. This again is by design, because in essence every serious gamer was once a casual gamer. At one point in time we all were n00bs. Blizzard understands this, and wishes to help turn those casual gamers into more dedicated gamers through nice and easy difficulty transitions.

Blizzard also understands that a large portion of their fan base are hardcore gamers looking for a challenge. Thus comes the concern that even in later difficulties the game will not present an adequate challenge, well Jay Willson assured us that this isn't something we should be worried about. Through a display of testimonials from in-house testers who have been put up against the Inferno difficulty, we're given an idea of how difficult endgame content will truly be.


Followers

Followers replacing mercenaries wasn't all too popular among the community. The fact that these new side-kicks were only available in single player was a big change it itself, but the added hit of them only being viable in normal difficulty never settled well with the majority of the fan base. In good fashion Blizzard has listened to these concerns and tweaked followers to be viable through all levels of content, though still only useable while playing solo.


Town Only Skill Swapping

The title speaks for itself, but the reasoning behind why this change is being made is interesting. The dev team found that more and more often players would have their skill UI open while slaying monsters, swapping skills out multiple times as they played through small areas. This would make for some problems if left unattended. Not only does it take up a large amount of screen real-estate, but it takes away from the feeling of identity with your character when you're changing such a core aspect so often.

So right now they're testing town only skill swapping where you'll walk over to this area or NPC to swap out your skills. Jay didn't seem very happy about this, and stated how this isn't the final solution. If this doesn't work they will also be testing an out of combat swap system. This second option could make for some heavy development, since it have been stated that Diablo has no in, or out of combat tracker that these type of systems can communicate with.

Well, lets face it. The Beta has been out for a while now, and you've likely watched enough footage to write one of these yourself. So, why exercise your eye muscles on this instead of more furious, Hulk smashing gameplay? Truthfully, if I may turn the camera towards myself for a second, I love the Barbarian class. Throughout the Diablo franchise I've been intrigued by no other class, and even with the introduction of the Monk, I've yet to budge in my interests. That being said, I've focused my playtime almost entirely on this class, and have done my best to learn its ins and outs in Diablo III so far. Rather than take you through the story line of the Beta through the eyes of the Barbarian, I'll be diving into the different aspects of the class itself.

Throughout the Diablo series there has been one primary tanking archetype, be it the Warrior in Diablo I, or the Barbarian in Diablo II and now Diablo III. While other classes can often be built to play a similar role, one could argue it comes most easily to the Barbarian. This is due to three main factors.



Through a multitude of skills the Barbarian uses super natural strength to pulverize foes (and barrels ;)). Most of these skills help enforce the feeling that the Barbarian is a heavy hitting character, dealing large chunks of damage with each hit, while not typically as quick or agile as the other classes. The Barbarians' skills are broken down into three groups, Fury Generators, Fury Spenders, and Situational. Though we only get access to a few of each in the Beta, there are still many potent combinations to play around with.

Many of these skills surprised me with their efficiency. When the Fury System was first announced I had some concern the Fury Generators would pale in comparison to the damage and efficiency of the Spenders. While the Spenders do typically pack more punch, either through pure damage or other effects, the Generators get the job done just fine.

The skills available in this category during the Beta include Bash, Cleave, Leap Attack, Ground Stomp, and Frenzy.

I found myself hard pressed to choice between these skills when all of them became available. Since for the most part the Beta is easy as pie, I narrowed it down to which I took the most pleasure in using, which is Bash and Leap Attack. All of the skills are efficient though, and could easily fit into many different builds. Speaking strictly for the Beta, at level 13 (level cap) you out class the monsters by enough that it really doesn't matter what skills you use, so it comes down to preference rather than necessity.


Sure, the Generators get the job done, but the Spenders bring more to the table in general, after all you have to work for these. These skills are so fun to use; each time I swing my Hammer Of The Ancients I feel like a boss.

The skills in this category available in the Beta are Hammer Of The Ancients, Threatening Shout, Battle Rage, Weapon Throw, and Rend.

Each one of these skills is a blast to use, though in most cases some seem to be more preferred than others. Since this is about my honest impressions of the class, I'll say I rarely use Threatening Shout, or Rend. While I could see their use when things get challenging, I find their effects less desirable than other more powerful skills such as Weapon Throw, or Hammer Of The Ancients in the easy atmosphere of the Beta. Even Weapon Throw seems to fall short, not in damage (it does an insane amount), but instead in availability.

At full Fury you only have enough to use Weapon Throw five times, and un-runed the skill only hits one enemy. So at best, you only get five kills out of a full Fury orb by using it. There is a Passive Skill to remedy this though, No Escape, which offers not only a 100% damage boost to Weapon Throw (and Ancient Spear), but returns 20 Fury for each enemy killed with it. Sadly, this Passive Skill is not available in the Beta.


Unlike the other categories, we only get access to two of these skills in the Beta.

These two skills are Ignore Pain, and Revenge.

Both certainly will have their uses come challenging encounters, but like some other skills, they are just unnecessary in easy environments. Either way, I gave them a try to understand how they could be used if need be. Ignore Pain could be great for a whole bunch of clutch situations, need those extra few seconds to rush through a crowd and attack a primary target? Low on heath and need to get out of there? Ignore Pain certainly has a niche.

Revenge also has plenty of situational uses, and saved my life once during early gameplay. During one of my early play-throughs of the Beta I came across a mod of Illusionist Grotesque mixed with some Skeletal Archers and regular Skeletons. Mods who are classified as Illusionists split into three when at 30% health or lower, each of the copies spawn with the same amount of heath the original creature had when it split.

So upon my slaying of the first Grotesque, it predictably exploded. What I didn't realize was the explosion had brought all of the other Grotesque to below 30% heath, so they each split into three. There was now give or take 15 Grotesque surrounding me. On top of that, the explosion killed the two Grotesque the original one split into, so a chain reaction of explosions occurred all around me, nearly killing me instantly (I wish I had a screen shot). Lucky for me, I had Revenge equipped and it had activated. I swiftly deployed the skill, killing most of the Corpse Worms which would have surely taken me, regained a good amount of health from the hits, which granted me enough time to grab some nearby health globes; effectively saving me from a certain and comical death.


The Passive Skills for the Barb add a mammoth amount options to toy with. Each has a very appealing buff, so choosing between them largely comes down to what you have in mind for your build. These are the toppings to the Barb pizza, adding just the right flavor to your build.

During the Beta four Passive Skills become available, Blood Thirst, Pound Of Flesh, Ruthless, and Weapons Master.

As with the Active Skills, some of these Passive Skills will have more appeal to the in high difficulties. Take Pound Of Flesh (Pictured right) for example, during easy, or even mildly difficult situations this may seem unnecessary, maybe the occasional life potion is enough. I'll willing to bet though, that during Inferno Difficulty the cooldown on potions will hinder their usefulness greatly, making health globes all the more valuable. These are the situations where less exciting, more tactical skills (both active and passive) will be used.



As with the previous installments, the heavy melee class starts with more life points, a necessary aspect of a tanking class. The Barb starts off with 84 life, compared to the Witch Doctors' 80, and the other classes' 76; this gap only increases with level. Aside from life, the Barb also starts off with 11 Defense, compared to the Monks' 10, Demon Hunters' and Witch Doctors' 9, and the Wizards' 8. Those few points make a world of difference. The Barbarians' 11 Defense grants 50% reduced damage, while the Wizards' 8 offers none at all.


Fury has sure turned out to be a great system for the Barbarian. Since the only way to build it is to smash things or take damage (unless you have the Unforgiving Passive Skill), it pushes you to participate in combat. While some of the other classes have mild issues with their resource, as it stands right now the Fury system works wonderfully. There is no abundance, or lack of Fury during combat. If you need Fury you build it, if you have Fury you spend it, and everything around you is dead by the end of it all.

If I could think of anything to be tweaked regarding Fury, it wouldn't be Fury itself, but instead how much Fury some Fury Spending skills use. As I mentioned before Weapon Throw is expensive, costing 20 Fury, which only goes into 100 five times. I'd like to see some changes to skills like that, where even if you don't have the perfect build (No Escape for Weapon Throw for example), you can still somewhat efficiently use the skills. This isn't game breaking, but it does deter the use of those over priced skills to some extent.

Also, I support this message. Special thanks to CherubDown for relaying it.



Blizzard is making sure all classes rely heavily on gear in Diablo III. The recent switch-up of base damage, to % weapon damage of almost every skill on every class pushes this even further. This change isn't reflected in the Beta, but you can head over to the Blizzard Skill Calculator to see the changes yourself.

Being a Barbarian player through the series, you get used to the fact that you are your gear. Small upgrades in armor or weapons can have a huge effect in gameplay. Throughout my experiences with the Barb so far, this holds true in Diablo III just as much as the previous games. The excitement of finding a new, better weapon is relatable to finding a $20 bill on the ground.

Sadly though, the Beta currently has a very limited amount of content. The only rare items I've seen drop are from the first slaying of the Skeleton King, and the only Legendary item I've seen is Griswold's Edge, which is only found on a randomly appearing Anvil in the Old Tristram Ruins, to which I have found three. I personally am near certain this isn't how the drop tables will be come release.

Aside from drops, crafting is a very viable means to get great items. In fact, most of the best items in the Beta right now can only be crafted. This is due to the fact that you are able to level your Black Smith higher than you normally would have by the time you defeat the Skeleton King on this difficulty, thus granting you access to gear that out classes the drops at this point in the game. This isn't to say you can just craft a perfect item, there are many variables which lend itself to a great crafted item. These variables are completely random, so getting a great roll can be very rare. This is where the Auction House comes in. I personally have used to Auction House for most of my gear. I tried to roll good items, but it just didn't happen.
What's interesting is for the most part, every class is looking for the same armor. Since the only restriction is level (unless it's class specific), and the Beta has so few sought after stats, as a Barb I'm looking for the same Gloves of many Wizards. This makes for a very competitive atmosphere in the Auction House, which is a great sign for the future.

As one would expect from a player based economy, most items are ridiculously overpriced at first. Something wonderful is starting to happen though, those overpriced items are not selling. Even in the Beta where players know nothing they're accomplishing will carry over to release, people are still refusing to pay for overpriced items. This brings the item price down, and slowly but surely will come to a standard price for that item depending on stats.


Blizzard has done a fine job at maintaining the heaviness that characterizes this class. Every time I see an enemy I'm drawn towards it like a magnet. The feeling that comes from knocking skeletons clean from your enemies' flesh is empowering, and extremely satisfying. The physics that ensue after these powerful strikes may look silly while watching gameplay footage, but let me assure you it feels just right when you're behind the controls. There are some tweaks to be done in this area if you scrutinize it, but nothing that will ruin your ground and pounding experience with the Barbarian. This class is for those who love being toe-to-toe with yo foes, ya dig?

I've been loosely following this tread for the past few days, and beyond some overly personal remarks, which in themselves are often brought about by this topic, overall I find it very interesting. As long as this topic can be discussed maturely, it yields some good food for thought. While my perspective and opinions haven't changed, I've pondered each and every point made, and so came to this post in which I'll try to simplify what I feel is a complex question.

This isn't directed towards anyone in particular, but instead to anyone who believes in a higher being of one sort or another. Again, I in no way mean to push anyones buttons, but dancing around the topic doesn't do any good for clarity, so in my posts I may come across frank.

Many a time in this thread people who believe in a higher being are offended by comparing God to mystical figures such as fairies for example. I'd like to try to clarify why comparisons like this are made so often.

A common statement a non-believer will make is there is no proof in God. The word "proof" seems to have a broader meaning to some, so this word itself has to be looked at and broken down rationally. Many times in this thread the word "proof" has been attacked, saying nothing can be proven, not even scientifically; this is correct if you're speaking ultimately. This has been braking the clarity of the statement, "There is no proof of God". So instead, I'd like to reward it to, "There is no evidence of God". I feel this reflects the statement better.

I can say with confidence that Diablo III will not come out tomorrow, because there is a lot of evidence that points to it. Evidence is how we understand the world, and maybe the word "proof" reflects something that we as a race have trouble understanding, since it tends to change context under certain topics. Science has also been attacked in a similar way, saying it doesn't prove anything ultimately. Again, this may very well be true. Scientific laws get proven wrong all the time, and Scientists rejoice (kind of). Being proven wrong means that's just another step towards being truly right, if there is such a thing. The thing is though, speaking rationally, Science works. You can predict things to a very high percentage using it. Science stands on the shoulders of rational thinking. Even new ground breaking concepts are built on math and ration. Without this process we wouldn't have computers, food, or anything for that matter. Without logic, we would have nothing. Abstract thoughts have their use surely, and lead to a great amount of progress. The thing is though, those thoughts are always met with logics in order to produce the end result.

So speaking of evidence, beyond unusable personal accounts of God, there is no evidence for one to rationalize. I just want to state I'm not speaking of a humanized God, I know for a lot of you this isn't how you view the concept. There is a whole other fine line in that concept where this topic can get fuzzy. If you say God is everything (or at least the unknown), than you're just replacing the concept of nature with the word God, and adding some emotional attachment to it. That's a whole other area of this topic though.

Back to the point, there is just as much rational evidence of God as there is of anything else with an equal lack of evidence. There are numerous accounts of Bigfoot, all of which from unreliable accounts, which the same thing can be said for God. If I may try and read a common response to this, many who believe in God will say either, -I don't need proof, I've had experiences, or have felt it to be true-, or -God is an incomprehensible concept-. Both may be true, but they can't be used in debate. If you go to court and say, "Your Honor, I swear I didn't do it" the judge is going to ask you to show evidence. If you use those type of statements in this topic you are essentially saying the same thing.

Cautiously, I ask for a concise answer to why with no evidence, so many choose to believe in God, but not Bigfoot or things of the like.

This may be more along the lines of a scientific post than anything, but I just want to state any mathematician, or physicist alike know and admit that the law of relativity is fundamentally flawed. The theories of quantum mechanics and quantum physics do not mingle well, which was their first sign that the theories have flaws. Next, neither can explain what happens inside a singularity, both laws break down completely, ending in infinity, meaning that a singularity is infinitely heavy, yet takes up no space at all. That puts it terrible simple, but you seem to know enough about this topic to understand. In essence, this means there are fundamental flaws with our basic laws of nature.

After admitting that, there still it no room in the ration mind to place God in the void of mystery. God throughout history has been a placeholder for mystery. The tribes of early man used God as a place holder for near everything, early civilizations used it for weather and astronomy, among other things. Now we use God as a place holder for metaphysical concepts, which sadly right now are above of knowledge. Looking back at my first statement, even if our fundamentals are incorrect, that doesn't mean everything is wrong, and we know nothing about the world around us.

Using placeholders does no good when those placeholders don't drive us to move forward. When God is used as a placeholder, one is saying that is the end of the equation, the answer is God. This doesn't do anyone any good, and if everyone thought like this we would have nothing, and I believe that is proof enough on this very particular point I'm making.

As I've said many times, I'd much rather place a question mark in the equation than write in God as the conclusion.

Looks awesome Umpa :), came together really nice with the changes!

Looks like you have competition though, Wynthysts' looks pretty sweet too. This is going to be a rough judging between all the entries. :(.

Over the past few hours a good amount has changed around the Diablo III Community Site, some of these additions are more potent than other. Lets work our way through these updates, shall we?

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The Official Item Page Is Up




It seems the page is still under mild construction, with some item icons repeating themselves, and others simply nonexistent. All and all though you can clearly see how the page will pan out, categorizing items by body slot, with class specifics gear being conveniently identified by class.

Through this one page, we have many significant topics to touch on.


Follower Specific Items


On top of being able to equip your Follower with standard gear, there will also be follower specific items which are only usable by the item's specified follower. These items don't have stats to them yet, so it's still unknown exactly what buffs they'll grant your follower.

• Enchantress Items

Her items seem to be based on magical trinkets, such as mirrors and amulets.

• Scoundrel Items

The Scoundrel's items suit his character very well, consisting of such things as dice and satchels.

• Templar Items

For the Templar, we find items like Tomes and Vials of Tears.


Amulets & Rings Have Sockets

Confirmed by multiple examples for either item, it's evident both amulets and rings can have sockets. Now to what extent this goes is unknown, can you add sockets to them? If so, can you add sockets to legendaries that don't already have them? Multiple sockets? These are questions without answers at the moments.


Consumables


Potion Revisions
Potions seem to have gotten a nice upgrade graphically, alongside a confirmed "Other" category of potion which grants a buff for a certain length of time.

Scrolls...
If there was any doubt that Scrolls will play a large role in Diablo III, the fact that they have their own page should alleviate any lingering doubts. There are currently three different types of scrolls. The Scroll of Companion, which summons a temporary critter who picks up gold for you, the Scroll of Identity, that identifies rare and legendary items (magic items no longer need to be identified), and the Scroll or Reforging, which re-rolls your item at the cost of negative 10% max durability (there are three ranks of these scrolls, each used for either magic, rare, or legendary items).

Tomes...
Throughout the world you will find Pages of Training, these alone do nothing. After collecting five Pages of Training, you may combine them to form a Tome of Training which is used to level up the Artisan of your choice. It takes multiple Tomes of Training to level your chosen Artisan.


Crafting Materials


As it stands, each difficulty will have four different crafting materials, one salvaged from each corresponding item class (Common, Magic, Rare, and Legendary). Gems will be broken down into Gem Dust which may have many uses, one surely being to craft higher tier gems.

Crafting Recipes..

Along your journey you will find Crafting Recipes, which may be given to the corresponding Artisan to teach him or her how to craft a new item.

• Black Smith

The Black Smith recipe pages on the Diablo 3 Community Site not only list the item stats, but also the required Black Smith level, materials needed, and gold cost. These recipes will grant the Black Smith the ability to craft new items.

• Jeweler

Recipes are also required for the Jeweler to craft high level gems. Three of one tier gem will be needed to craft the next tier gem.

• Mystic

Recipes will provide your Mystic with new Enchantments that she can imbue your items with.


Armor Dyes


Not everything about Diablo 3 is about how your gear functions. Making an item your own is very important, it helps you to feel connected with your character. Thankfully armor dyes have been granted their own page in homage of this. There is even a Vanishing Dye, in case you don't want a certain item to show at all.


Gems Get Overhauled


Gems have gone through a few public revisions over their development, most have been just graphical. Now it seems there will only be four gem types, instead of the six we've seen previously. Diamond and Sapphire didn't make the cut for one reason or another, leaving only the Amethyst, Emerald, Ruby, and Topaz.

This decision may have been made a while back, as looking back on the last showing of gems there were only four types on screen.




Unattuned Rune System


A while back our own Kickin_It reported on how the Rune System could very well change from its form we've seen in the past, and indeed it has. In short, the new system adds another type of Rune drop, one that will drop blank. This Unattuned Rune would only attain a type when you place it into a skill. Furthermore, even after you've taken the Rune out of your skill, it will forever remain attributed to that skill, and may only be used in that skill, even when traded to others. There was talk that the Mystic might be able to clear a Rune, essentially returning it to an unattuned Rune, but this remains unknown. With the new system the Unattuned Runes will also roll random attributes upon attaining a type, further extending the range in which a single rune can vary. For the whole story I highly suggest you read Kickin_It's article on the matter, since it has indeed come to reality.


Demon Hunter Resource Changes


As reported on by our own Magistrate in his recent article on the topic, it seems the Demon Hunter's resource has undergone a large revision.

There has been a consistent trend in the responses of current Beta testers regarding the Demon Hunter's Hatred resource. The complaint was that it simply runs out too quickly, leaving the class unable to use its offensive abilities. Blizzard has heard these claims, and changed the system according.

Where as the Demon Hunter's skills used to be categorized under Hatred, Discipline, and Utility, now there are both Hatred Generators, and Hatred Spenders, alongside a Discipline category. With this change the class will now be able to strategically choose both hatred generators, and spenders to keep the pain rolling at a consistent rate.


Complete Skill Damage Overhaul


While this topic doesn't have it's own page, or even a single mention on the entire site, one could say this is the most drastic change of them all.

Skills across all five classes generally were based off two types of damage, % weapon damage, or scaling damage which only changes with the rank of the skill; this posed a big problem. When a player found a decent weapon, all of the skills based off of scaling damage instantly became obsolete. In Force's recent Let's Play series he came across this issue many times, where he wouldn't use certain skills simply because the ones based off weapon damage outclassed the ones based of scaling damage.

What Blizzard has done is base almost every single offensive skill off % weapon damage. This will make nearly every skill viable, where as before it was almost always the better choice to stick with the % weapon damage based skills. This trend can be seen across all five classes. In concept, this change greatly broadens the number of viable skills, though only time will tell how it will turn out.

So, you were lucky enough to get into the Beta. Awesome! Enjoy your early look at the game! Though as a Beta participant, you do have a certain level of responsibility to fulfill. After all, the whole point of a Beta is to polish the game for release. So with that in mind, here's what you need to know to help make Diablo III even better.

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Think You Found A Bug?

So you think you found a bug, and want to squash that sucker. Before taking any action on the forums, be sure to check it against this list of non-bugs which may be mistaken as one.

Turns Out It Was A Bug?

Great! Just be sure to check your bug against this list of known bugs before writing up your bug report.

How To Write A Good Bug Report

So your bug is neither a non-bug, or a known bug, congrats! To be as helpful as possible in reporting your bug, be sure to read through Vasadan's proper bug reporting guide before posting in the Bug Report Forum.

Reporting Hacks, Cheating, And Exploits

Due to the viral nature of these problems, they must be handled differently than other issues. Never under any circumstance post a thread about one of these on the forums, it'll just spread the problem. Your thread will be deleted, and you could be facing a permanent ban. If you find an issue of this type please send a detailed Email to hacks@blizzard.com, or fill out a form here.

Beta Feedback

Squashing bugs and reporting hacks aren't the only productive parts of a Beta. Player feedback is also very important for bettering the game before release. Before you express your suggestions for the game on the Beta Feedback Forums, make sure you've read through the Feedback Guidelines.

Problems With Streaming And Downloading

Having trouble downloading the game, or streaming it to hungry viewers? Check your issues against the currently known problems, and possible solutions here, or if you're on a Mac here.


Now that you know how to handle any potential problems, enjoy your time playing !

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Diablofans Social Media

For those who weren't granted Beta access yet, don't fret. We here at Diablofans have a robust, ever expanding collection of Diablo III content just waiting for you to check it out! Be sure to regularly visit all of our branches for your recommended daily amount of Diablo III. Subscribe to our YouTube, Like us on FaceBook, follow us on Twitter, and join us in IRC!

Quote from CurseYouAll

In order of annoyingness

1. Monsters and destroyable scenery fly like pinballs when struck. Looks very unrealistic and silly! Blizz, can you please tone down the physics a bit? It feels like Titan Quest!

While the rest of your list I could go either way on, I personally very much so disagree with this gripe. The physics in Diablo 3 are one of my favorite parts of the environment thus far. If you've noticed, every spell has a different force of impact on objects or creatures it comes in contact with. For example, the Barb's hammer of the ancients skill sends monsters and the like flying almost off the screen in some cases, which I love, I feel it enforces the fact that it is a very physically powerful skill cast from a very powerful character.

On the other hand, skills we've seen from the Demon hunter don't have this type of effect on objects or enemie, which makes sense considering an arrow would not have much impact force.

All "fanboyism" aside, I genuinely enjoy this feature of the game.

But look at the bright side--Sixen will be doing awesome video content AND in a few years he'll be at Blizzard. How cool will it be to say we know someone who works for Blizzard?! I don't think I could be more happy for you or proud of you. You're doing what you love and you're doing a great job.

You brought a lot of great things to the site: dedication, passion, countless awkward staff moments... Think of the crazy stuff we've done! Remember the April Fool's Day that the entire site was redone in pink, just before the software change? Remember when the wiki first started and everything we went through to shuffle users over to it? (To say nothing of all the work the sysops and Kris do for it every day!) Remember all the arguing over the rules until the current iteration, the terrible idea of making Mephisto a staff member hoping he'd be less retarded? Remember Zhar? (Nothing else needs saying about him, lol.) Remember all these little things? They're things I won't forget, and I think we're better as a staff and a community for going through it all. It sure wouldn't had been the same without you, Kevin

So, goodbye, I guess. Even though we'll be following everything you do for the rest of your life

(PS: This was from my phone; forgive any spelling mistakes or autocorrect fails.)

I was bored so I did this after my present avatar.




Edit: annoying pixels, but hey!

After the massive lore panel, it was time to get some feedback from the diehard fans that managed to pilgrimage to this year's convention. Here are the highlights from the Open Q&A; just keep in mind that this isn't meant to be a transcript, so all of it is paraphrased.

Caution: The following may contain spoilers.

Q: You made the followers more powerful for end game content. Will they be viable all the way through Inferno?

Blizzard representatives responded positively, saying that companions will be able to fight adequately alongside heroes through each difficulty. They have done some testing with companions through the difficulties, and although this is a very recent change, they do believe that changes they have incorporated into the hirelings will make then viable in the endgame.

Q: Is Diablo a girl?

The cover art for the event booklet made Diablo look anything but the usual muscular, bulky monster we've seen in his more animal incarnations in the previous games. While nothing was confirmed on why Diablo looked so distinctly female, with the sleekness of the abdomen and the wide hips, they did acknowledge that it was done. So it was on purpose. Maybe there's something to the popular Leah-possession lore speculation prevalent in our lore discussion forum.

Q: Can you elaborate on hardcore mode and how it's different from the previous games?

They mostly confirmed what is already known about Diablo III's hardcore mode: it will have its own Auction House that does not interact with normal, softcore players, said Auction House will use only gold as a currency (not real money), and so on. However, it was mentioned that if a player is killed, other players will not be able to pick the gear from the fallen character. In Diablo II, players were able to set their hardcore characters to "lootable" to other, trusted party members in the event of an untimely death. Unless misspoken, this is a marked change from the previous games. When you die, your gear is gone. Period.

Q: Can fresh sixty players succeed in Inferno, and will Inferno ever be nerfed for newer players?

In step with sentiments spoken yesterday about the difficulty of Inferno mode at the tail end of the Gameplay and Auction House panel the other day, it was confirmed that newly max-leveled characters (sixty is Diablo III's cap) will not be able to succeed easily, if at all, in Inferno mode. It's meant to be a challenge in every sense of the word, no matter what level characters are at.

While they were vehement about not nerfing it for the newbie's sake, they did add a caveat: as they address hardcore, there may be some balancing to account for hardcore players in Inferno mode. But they will not be simplifying Inferno mode for casual players.

Q: Why is light radius not in the game?

Light radius is not entirely gone, and it still works well in some contexts, like deep dungeons, but they found that using the new 3D engine really looked lack-luster when limiting light sources to only that of the player. They really want to utilize different light points to add interest to the 3D environment, so it's no longer a major element throughout the game.

Q: What's being done to protect against botting?

Probably a topic near and dear to any players getting ready to compete in Diablo II's upcoming ladder reset, botting has always been a controversial and annoying issue. Bots served as everything from farmers to level grinders, making the ladder ranking system essentially a hopeless, pointless list of bots outstripping human players. It was argued that the actual gameplay of the game renders botting more difficult to achieve, but that they will be policing it well, likely actively and with more robust security measures. It is also important to them to address spam bots, likely by watching join/leave events.

Q: Will WASD control be available?

While it had been played around with, they ultimately felt that non-analog controls didn't work well with Diablo's very analog-focused gameplay.

Q: Will runewords ever be added to the newest game?

They stated that the new gameplay mechanics and customization options account for what was previously done with runewords. The new, more robust crafting system allows for vast player-generated gear, runestones allow for heavy skill customization, and any other number of mechanics compensate or surpass what was accomplished with runewords in Diablo II.

Q: Can you confirm a console version?

They did not want to officially confirm a console version because they want to be completely sure it's something that will work and work well. They have been hiring console developers to work internally on console ideas, and they feel that it plays very well with the kind of game Diablo is, but they don't want to announce anything until they're entirely sure everything will work out.

Of primary concern is not wanting to compromise the PC version, likely in playability or release (as stated any number of times over the last months.) For now, they're focusing on filling out a console team.

Q: Attuned runes essentially allow for a ton of specialized runes for each character skill, creating a huge inventory problem with storage. What's being done to address this?

They acknowledged that they are aware of the issue and are thinking of ways to fix it. They believe that attuned runes add an interesting new facet to skill selection, customization, and build commitment, so they don't foresee removing them, but there is definitely an inventory issue that needs to be addressed.

Q: What are some of the issues seen in developing a console version?

Targetting skills becomes more difficult when using a controller and not a mouse and keyboard although they feel that player movement is greatly improved. Monster AI seems somewhat different when interacting with the game in a new way. They found that they spend the most time working with controls with a console iteration. They don't want a potential console version to feel like a port of the PC version, but a quality version that plays well as it is.

Q: Can we get more beta keys?

They have more waves coming out after the BlizzCon and are very happy with the feedback that they've received so far. In addition to more beta access sweeping across Battle.net accounts, they also said that a major patch is coming for the beta version of Diablo III very soon. We can guess that this will likely include the skill updates and other changes seen in the beta iteration seen in the PvM demo here at BlizzCon.

Q: What comes after Inferno?

While the team feels that Inferno mode will pose huge challenges for players for a long time to come, they have said that they will add more endgame content should they find that players demand more. There's also secret content, which they have confirmed to be in the game, so perhaps we'll see content similar to the Cow Level for endgame enjoyment. At the moment, they are more focused on just getting the game as-is out to the public.

Q: With the Wizard's cast rate announced as being based on weapon speed, what is being done to reward opting for other items besides cast rate-oriented equipment?

They believe that choosing cast rate-centric gear versus more obscure equipment is entirely based on the build a player opts for. If a player decides to use skills that benefit more from faster cast rates, it will be logical to use weapons that allow for faster cast rates, while skills which do not focus on cast rates, like Meteor, will allow players to focus on more damage-centric weapons.

Q: Will there be more skill slots?

The team believes that allowing more skill slots removes choices and, by extension, build diversity across a playerbase, so they will not be adding more skill slots.

Q: How will RMAH PvP players be matched with PvP players that do not spend real money on the Auction House for gear?

Buying higher gear will cause a player to be matched with peers of a like power level through the hidden ranking system, so purchasing gear with real money will only cause players to be matched against more experienced or more powerful characters. The actual outcomes of PvP games will not be affected.

Q: Will there be more PvP modes besides arena mode?
The developers found that PvP in Diablo II mostly split players up for fear of getting ganked, meaning more players were playing in private games than playing together in public ones. This led to a focus on on a dedicated PvP mode with dedicated PvP support, the arena, and a PvP progression system. However, more PvP modes are being considered, and Jay Wilson even said that they are looking into a dueling option similar to Diablo II, although nothing concrete is yet known and they aren't sure if such a mode will make the initial release.

Q: Will there be guild support?

Guilds and clans in Diablo II were often organized using chat bots and out-of-game online communities. Hope had arisen that this would mean the developers saw this need as enough to implement guild support in Diablo III, but the idea was shot down. They will not have guild functionality available for release, but something may be implemented after release. They saw a lot of guild ideas that didn't get implemented in Diablo II as great mechanics that they want to work on in the future, but they want to make sure that if they do implement guild functionality, they will do it right.

Q: Will boss AI be scaled with difficulty to allow for more interesting and less repetitive battles at different difficulty levels??

They're looking across the major bosses for the game and tuning their AI to be refreshing and challenging according to difficulty mode, but they aren't sure if the changes will be really drastic from difficulty to difficulty or only minor, although they want such differences to be big. It seems to be another question of what will make it into the initial release.

Q: Will players be able to use their skills together in combination attacks?

They have seen many players using strategic implementation of skills, like a Wizard freezing enemies and then melee characters shattering frozen enemies. They think that more sophisticated team play would be fantastic, but they don't want payers choosing not to play with other players because of class choices in certain situations, which they view as adverse to encouraging group play.

Q: Will there be an API for the Auction House?

They have talked about it at length, but it will not make the launch version of the game. It may be added after release. They seemed positive about such an implementation.

Q: With the 12-month account for WoW players allowing a free digital purchase of Diablo III, will there be any compensation for purchasing a collector's edition of Diablo III?

Buying a collector's edition of Diablo III will count as credit towards a 12-month account.

Those were most of the more interesting questions asked, but we encourage you to stay tuned as we upload video versions of each of the panels and keep your eyes peeled for full transcriptions. There may be things that you will find more interesting on a personal level, and with so much up in the air with Diablo III, there are a lot of questions that didn't get answered very directly and were cut from this report.

It's funny because his personality is shit?

Quote from snared04drummer

Honestly it feels like a short demo, and a teaser just to keep the rabid dogs at bay. IF those were its purposes, then I would say "yes, it has backfired." After ten years time, a few measly hours and a magical level 13 hard cap with a CONGRATS YOU ROCKZORZ, BETA DEFEATED! Flashing on my screen after I down the first mini-boss... it's just not enough. I know the Blizzard employees are smart enough to know that it's not enough, but on the other hand, they never promised anything more.

That's the thing, when you work so hard as a company to be continuously cryptic and never get straight answers about ANYTHING until the absolute last possible minute, things like this will always happen. I've never had less than complete faith that Blizzard will make great games (And often awful patches), but they have never, ever learned the lesson of what a time table is, deadlines, etc. It's only because of their virtually endless resources that they can get away with this. Diablo III just proved to be a little bit of a different animal for them, because they have literally put off its release for over a decade. I don't know of any other game that transcends that sort of time frame.

Honestly, the delay is almost certainly not technically based, but about some aspect of their business as a whole. Fans have a right to be, and should be pissed about that, especially considering how ultimately unfulfilling the beta is. But as always, being treated like children by Blizzard, are only real option is to be pissed off and wait, or be pissed off and not buy the game. Just realize that they don't care either way.

The problem is that you misinterprated the purpose of the beta, which was cleary stated by Blizzard on any number of occasions before it even began.

They never advertised it or even hyped it as you described. If anything, the advent of beta was downplayed by Blizzard (although through fansites, such as DiabloFans, it is obviously our responsibility to hype it.) Remember all the fiscal meeting let-downs? Remember all those opportunities they had to talk beta and didn't? They didn't hype the beta. They didn't want to.

Seeing responses from fans everywhere, they didn't even have to. We created our own hype, our own unreachable goals for a two-hour session that was not maximized for enjoyment. I hesitate to even call it a demo, because calling it a demo would imply that they were hyping it as a demo. They weren't. It's a beta.

I could quote any number of direct Blizzard representative sources stating that the beta is a beta. No, it's not a demo. It's a beta. To test for bugs. To test infrastructure. It's not supposed to be a demo. Not a demo. Not. A. Demo.

This is why I think that article is pretty much pointless. I could see a reason for controversy if Blizzard had given us mixed messages, but they didn't. Anyone that's disappointed has only one person to blame: his or herself.

So, when you say that they're purposefully being cryptic, perish the thought. They clearly stated what beta would be long beforehand. They clearly stated that they can't give us a release date because they didn't know when it would be, but they did their best to give us a range because they felt an obligation to their fanbase. Would we have them lie? No, I think not, because then we'd have even more bullshit hitting the fan.

/shoots self

I'm a work horse

Naaeeeeeeee

My god is ODIN!!!


xD

im gonna say most people on this forum, and most likely the entire internet, are atheists or agnostic/dontgiveafck.

so. goodluck

After some reflection to my invitation for a thread about the merits of religious supersitions (thank you Umpa!), it occured to me that a catchy title would do me no good if it set about from the wrong side of the coin. This is a mistake many debating atheists and anti-theists make and one that almost always sees them waste undue time explaining his own position. With that in mind, I spout not the renunciation of Yaweh or Allah (or Zeus, Ra, Seth, Zaroaster, Shiva, Vishnu, Thor, Ananzi, etc.) from my title, but request that those living in the certitude of such a being explain why they suppose their God(s) to exist. As an atheist, I make no such claim to knowledge.

I freely admit that my knowledge has limits in the physical world as well as to the realm of what scientists can currently experiment and observe. I fully acknowledge that there will be new ideas, new postulaions, and even new religions long after my life has ended. I expect many would argue that science is dispensed with, having admitted these limitations, but to that I must push the question: what makes anything else more plausible? What makes a many-millenia old work of creative non-fiction (or historical fiction, take your pick) any more a useful tool to seek truth?

I must be careful to caveat on several points, again, in the hopes that we will have as little grandstanding and unnecessary derailing from the central issue:

1. Atheists do not maintain there is no god, they maintain there has never been convincing evidence for a god. While this distinction seems flippant, it is not. The former is a claim that would make atheists no more rational than a strident theist.

2. Atheists do not (all) contend that religious texts are entirely useless, morally bankrupt, or request their destruction. Many of us, myself included, oblige the Torah, the Bible, the Koran, etc. as works of literature worth reading. They may be windows into iron/bronze age society, common literary experiences that enrich the reader just as much as The Illiad, works of Shakespear, or (perhaps more modern context) a classic film series like The Godfather.

3. What then, seperates the agnostic from the Atheist? Good question. There is some debate on this, but my take is this: Agnostics just don't care about the question and Atheists have pursued the question and found all answers wanting. If you are a professed agnostic and find a problem with my diffirentiation, please let me know how you see yourself. I am quite interested in this dichotomy.

4. "The universe," is not proof of the existence of a god or gods. Infinite-regression arguments for first-cause (flying in the face of quantum physics and the concept of space-time) do not provide proof either. Appeals to authority on the matter of quantum physics proving a deist position would be interesting to hear (though i've yet to hear a good one).

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With that out of the way I would like to make the small request that posters identify (at least in their first post) themselves as Theist, Deist, Agnostic, or Atheist. This is not to typecast or mock anyone I view as holding an indefensible position, but rather to help me (and anyone else who wants to contribute) understand the context of what is being said by way of position.

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In deference to our gracious moderation team I will also request that ad hominem and useless trolling be kept at a cordial level. I'm well aware that most of these discussions don't "convert," or "englighten," anyone and that the prospect of this thread charging into the flaming abyss of crap are high: therefor, let us do our best to maintain a civil discourse.

So: Prove to me your God exists!