As we know, the only returning playable class is the Barbarian. However, Jay Wilson recently suggested some classes could return in the Diablo 3 expansion pack.
Source: battle.netBashiok: It is Skovos, and I think this piece was something that Leonard showed and discussed at the WWI Lore and Environment Art panel.
It isn't a location that you'll visit in Diablo III, but the artwork is a good example of the work and thought going in to fleshing out the world of Sanctuary. It's already a very complex world with a lot of locations and events, but a lot of it still isn't visually or contextually realized. As we want to create the feeling of a world outside of your immediate view it's important to create or expand upon the locations and stories of that world.
As we're working to create Diablo III we're also working to create a more visually complete Sanctuary
"MMO" as they mean it in the Diablo games is mostly the platform battle.net. Because we're talking about hundreds of thousands of people in the chat rooms creating "instanced" as they're called in the MMOs versions of the world. Its pretty much like the dungeons of World of Warcraft where each party gets to fight without the rest of the world.
Now the fact there are chat rooms before the players join the game and not a single world everyone is connected to when he logs on gave (and still gives) Blizzard the possibility to use advertising to save poor (or cheap) users from paying to play online.
The "Massive Multiplayer" aspect of Diablo still exists, even without fees, though.
our friend with the 60 (if not more) line post got the very definition of MMO wrong. Whats hes describing is MMORPG.
now they arent making the outdoors environments random just because the Diablo 2 outdoors environments were simply boring (except maybe all of act 4 that i'm not sure if it can be categorized as "outdoor"). Making a static world with random monsters and scripted events (such as mini-bosses that are called "champions" now) they keep some of the randomness with more interesting surroundings. And of course they have even more reasons to have random dungeon entrances around too that lead to even more random dungeons.
To me thats not a bad thing at all. At least we can wonder which mini-boss we're gonna get.
what i said if i recall correctly is that MMOs
are games that *INVOLVE* 100+ players
MMO qualities as you referred to them would include static environments.
Diablo is at it's heart a small group game.
MMOs usually involve hundreds of players. ever reach top level in an MMO? it requires a lot of communication with other players, a lot of deal making, and constant bickering.
Diablo doesn't really have that, and i like it that way.
Remember, in MMOs, not only that terrain is fixed and never changes - the groups of monsters and their spawn locations are 100% fixed - in D3 monsters will spawn randomly, and sometimes different mini-bosses and events will take place, random quests, and as mentioned, random changes in parts of the terrain.
have you ever gotten 1000 players together online in one map area?
have you ever seen that?
be reasonable. you want D3 to have 1000+ players on the same map?
is that kind of game going to be Diablo at all?
other babble about fixed terrain and random monsters is only pointing to the fact that Diablo is moving towards an MMO style game.
Forget that! I say two games.
one game is Diablo 3 -> improved on Diablo I and II.
second game is Diablo MMO -> incorporated whatever the Hell MMO concepts you want in there.
is Guild Wars considered MMORPG?
if yes (thats also what it is) how would you explain the fact that there are never 1000+ players on the same map? Even in Guild Wars most things are instanced with people meeting up in lobbies.
Diablo is mostly a single-player game that has a great multiplayer part that managed to keep it alive for many years after its release. That online platform made it MMO. Because on battle.net there are thousands of people in lobbies creating instanced worlds for themselves. Thats what made it MMO.
If you ask me, the Next-Gen MMO is Diablo related. Think about it, the next-gen MMO just started hiring positions last year. The game will take at least 4-5 years to develop - just enough time for Diablo III to start getting popular.
I think just like you.Blizz is trying to make fans get used to diablo as MMO idea.
there is a lot of confusion about this in the media and among fans.
Guild Wars is a hybrid MMORPG. it has static content and it is geared towards experiences with 30-50 players if i remember correctly. if i remember correctly the Guild War development team came from Blizzard. perhaps they moved forward with the Diablo MMO concept while the company was holding it for a future release.
regarding the MMO question.
the definition of MMO as an online platform is too broad. if a game is multiplayer and is online it is MMO? that would include every game made today. MMO specifically refer to a game where there is an online persistent world. MMO and MMORPG are used interchangeably in the current media.
generally the hallmark of today's MMOs are hours of uninterrupted gameplay. Diablo is much more flexible in this respect.
moving towards an MMO model would probably mean some areas would need walking distances that take 10-20 minutes of following a road through the zone. as Guild Wars demonstrated the use of waypoints in the MMO world destroys realism and creates continuity problems with the existence of a persistent reality within the online world.
Diablo avoids this with the randomness of the the whole world. waypoints make sense because none of the DIablo characters know which way is north or south. the randomness creates the realism in Sanctuary.
moving towards MMO would change that drastically. i've help beta test a number of MMOs and their predecessors in the text-online adventure format and changing the formula is going to change the feel and playability of the Diablo.
instead of what we have now in Diablo and Diablo 2, the experience will shift more towards a MMO experience heavily influenced by World of Warcraft.
[postive remarks about World of Warcraft here]
given that, i can tell you that the Diablo player will NOT like the shift if it has a lot of MMO content.
some possible changes:
static environments
static boss locations
static item drops
long walking time (10-30minutes) between areas
removal of waypoints
realism of waypoints unbalanced by static environment
status icons on the screen showing whether battle orders is active.
status icons on the screen showing whether your character is cold affected.
minimap in the corner rather than TAB map as it is currently.
PVP in MMO working differently than in Diablo 2.
Trade system having a completely different dynamic in MMO vs Diablo 1on1 trading.
Monthly fees.
Complexity of the game increasing, ie more bugs and less support resolving them.
and these are just off the top of my head.
there are bound to be *REAL* issues as well.
I can see what you mean, and it kind of works, but it's not precise enough.
It was massively hinted at that there would be another game or, more likely if you use logic, an expansion some time in the future including possibly old classes or some such thing. Look through the articles here, you're a smart person
There is not a Diablo mmo in the works.
As such. Most of diablos world will most likely not even be in diablo 3.
Remember. Diablo 3 is going to be story-driven now. If something is trivial and not beneficial to the story at hand... It most likely wont even be in the game either.
These facts sadden me a lot considering how cool some of the art work is... But thats what happens in the gaming industry. There's a point where you have to stop adding content and move on. But I agree with the people saying its lame.
Well, it seems feesable that the amazon could be a merc, whenever we do get to Skovos; much like the rogue was a merc when we adventured in her homeland.
The hell, this has been our lastest news for 4 days straight...
And by storm I mean Blizzcon.
the amazon are comparable only with the Sisters of the Sightless Eye with their bows.
read that somewhere.
perhaps Rogues will be in there. characters like Flavic are Rogues in Diablo 2.
Male or Female...probably the Order of the Sightless Eye now.
There can still be a male Amazon, they'd just have to change the name Amazon to something more neuter. There should be no arguments over what kind of character's they make until they make them though. Any class can be a male/female combination.