The main reason for the corpses not being able to stay permanently is the potential number of them on screen at one time, and specifically that each corpse is affected by physics, allowing them to be blasted and thrown all over the place by the force of player abilities.
It's one of the trade offs when integrating new technology, you can get really awesome effects, but they do have a cost. In a 2D world, a sprite of a dead creature doesn't really cost any more (system requirement-wise) than a sprite of something that's alive. Probably less. In a 3D world where a creature dies and then needs to have physics calculations thrown onto it so it can bounce and fall and fly around, they cost substantially more.
We remember fondly those situations where you've just completely obliterated a camp of Fallen, and as you're picking up items - marvel in your destruction. That's a feeling and part of the gameplay where if we can realistically keep some of it without sacrificing features or having insane system requirements we'd definitely like to, but no promises.
When questioned as to how skills like Find Item, Corpse Explosion and Summon Skeleton would work in D3, if they were indeed included, he responded:
We haven't announced any abilities outside of those listed on the website, so by discussing what is or isn't in the game I would be essentially making an announcement, which I'm not prepared to do.
Thanks for the tip, Dead9k!
That is a good idea. I was thinking purely of bodies but I suppose the decay into something less graphically intensive like a sprite of ash or bones would probably work and it wouldn't take away to the feel of the game. Probably the opposite in fact. Go spam that to Blizzard:spam:
Apparently there wont be abilities that use corpses anymore.
But on the "everyone can buy a PC for Diablo III" dont forget that Diablo III will be released worldwide and not everyone is willing to buy a new computer for it. Reading whats been said about graphics cards, I use 2x6600 GT (couldnt really be arsed to buy a new one knowing i'd most likely get a new pc soonish) and with my current system (that wasnt cheap around 3 years ago when i bought it) I wouldnt be able to play Diablo III even with medium details.
I'm in Europe alright, its cheaper to get a new system and I will. But worldwide... no, not everyone will be able to do so. Blizzard is revered among fans for making their games accessible for everyone because the requirements arent that high.
Being in the computer game sales business, i know the reason Crysis (and Assassin's Creed) didnt sell that well was because of their impossible system requirements.
Honestly, i dont want to see that with any of the coming Blizzard titles. If it means the corpses dissappear, so be it. I personally care about the level of gore while fighting and the "real" feeling i get when i see the mobs fly around (whole or in pieces). If they dissappear afterwards? I personally dont give a shit.
Whats more important is for the gameplay to remail fast paced (looked that way so i liked), that the skills and new classes are awesome (so far so good) and that the bosses will require some more tactic to beat (sitting in the corner killing Mephisto with Blizzard while he waits to die isnt that cool) and a cool story to keep us interested. Oh and new loots too, of course! But there's no doubt about that, eh? ^^
But think of it realistically. How many actually stayed to look at the corpses for more than 3-4 seconds in the previous games? I havent and I've been playing Diablo II for 5 years. Theres nothing interesting with the corpses (if there isnt any skill for it, that wont). Thats a waste of cpu power that i wouldnt like to have.
haha yea I laughed when I read an article where the crytek blamed piratism for that Crysis didn't sell good. Lol why would it sell if 10% of computers can run it perfectly.
Assassins creed is nice tho and it runs pretty good on my computer better than crysis anyways.
This hasn't stopped me from changing PCs every year or two though.
So you could think like this. If you upgrade your computer when d3 comes with $500 and play d3 for 10 years its quite cheap.
not sure how prices in FYROM are and how easy it is to get a new system often, but that wasnt my point at all.
There are people that simply dont consider upgrading every 2, 3 or 4 years. I generally get a new system around every 3 years, especially if a game i'm waiting for is about to be released, but for the casual, non-fan gamer thats not about to happen.
And believe me, most of the current systems will be old by the time Diablo III is out and these systems should be able to play the game at least at medium-high details.
WoW could run with decent frames on a 3-4 year old computer with medium details (said it wasnt in a raid) at the time it was released. Blizzard thinks of it the best way. Puts gameplay and availiablility over graphics. Even the graphics of Diablo II were half decent (if not crappy) at the time it was released, but it didnt bother us play it.
More off topic: going along with what timmen said also remember that 5 classes were in D2 and it bumped up to 7 in the expansion so there is always more time to add in two classes if an expansion will give the benefit of time and balancing.
Fact #2: The first minute of gameplay trailer shows more monsters being fought in a single location, than you will find anywhere in D2. Having 200 corpses in 2 square feet stuck with each other's head in someone else's butt, and thousands of polygons mashed into a shapeless form would look dull and retarded.
Game looks and feels perfect, and I'd rather have awesome physics and ability to play with corpses for a while than a bogland of static polygons polluting the environment.
One reason for some of the brightness of D3 in comparison to D2 is that the art team is shooting for more contrast. There will be more bright areas to help emphasize dark dungeons and vice versa. Also, D2 came out with five classes and then added two in an expansion. I wouldn't be surprised at all is Blizzard did the same thing with D3, so you will probably get you 7 classes eventually. The corpses disappearing could suck though if they don't come up with a good compromising solution.
Thats what Blizzards concern was in the first place.
In the game, with the physics engine, for every monster there are physics calculations that apply even when the monster dies. Same works with destructible environment (havent seen anyone complain about that yet) that can be used to kill enemies.
The difference between Diablo and most games that use a physics engine (thats also the major factor of the corpses having to despawn soon) is that we wont be having just a "few" enemies around. We're talking about Diablo, players fighting hordes of monsters.
The one decent solution suggested was to disable physics upon death but personally dont like the idea. While fighting the monster would "behave" real. Physics applied and all and after its dead its pinned on the ground? I'd rather see it despawn.
i think that having corpses vanish AND leaving all their items on the ground after a certain amount of time would be a good solution.
its because i ate them as a wear bear
agreed, the way Siegebreaker "despawned" summoning groups of skeletons at the same time looked awesome but again, having complex "despawn" animations would not help the performance. And i dont think people would like the "fast decaying bodies" we had in Warcraft 3 either. I wouldnt really mind that, though.
There are several mechanics involved with corpses from the D2 view that will probably carry over into D3.
class skills dependent on corpses
treasure finding mechanics -> checking corpses for treasure
corpses as weapons (summonable, explosive)
i would think that all these mechanices will carry into D3 - so the question is then with the performance issues what will be affected?
realistically this could be set by the player in options. so players with high performance machines can have many corpses, then ones without will have vanishing corpses after a time period (2-10minutes for example).
the only question then is does it affect player's ingame advantages with the corpses being removed after a time period (2-10minutes for example). in my experience very few players go back to search corpses or make use of them after battling through an area. in fact, corpses are only used perhaps in the first few minutes after or during a battle. i don't think this is a real issue, just something Blizz dev threw out as a tidbit about the game, and here we are chatting away about it.
i think corpses exploding with ragdoll effects is great visually, but unless it affects gameplay it's not that important to me.
now having a skill where a player could hide as a corpse to avoid death, that could be a nice new skill in D3.
having a Witch Doctor that can summon pets (we only saw those dog like creatures whos names i forgot again but there will be more), wall of zombies, fire explosions, disease and pet explosions means we're not having a necromancer who is the one of the two classes that used corpses.
1. Corpse Explosion looks too similar to pet explosion = no Corpse Explosion around.
2. As the official site mentions about the undead, skeletons arent made of one corpse, but of pieces. According to it, a skilled necromancer (not saying hes going to be implemented - since he has so many similarities to the WD i dont think he will) could summon skeletons everywhere (only it would be easier in a graveyard than in the middle of a forrest - but you get my point).
3. they havent mentioned potions at all, so i'd guess "find potion" will also not be included in Diablo III.
as of the rest of the skills that required corpses? I think they'll either change their description (as they did with "summon skeleton") or completely reform them (as they did with corpse explosion / pet explosion).
i do believe the official explanation about the performance issue if the corpses remained, mostly because of the amount of enemies we usually fight (and we saw the barbarian fight in the gameplay video). Physics calculation with that amount of enemies and the barbarian bashing everything around would take alot resources.