VideoGamer.com: If you could single out one feature of D3 to convince someone to by the game, what would it be? What's the coolest feature?
JW: The coolest announced feature? (laughter) There are a few we've not revealed yet! For me it would have to be the character classes. I know that's kind of an odd feature to pick, but one of the things that was a hallmark of D2, one of the thigns that made it a favourite game of mine, was that the character classes were extremely archetypal. They were the kind of characters that people inherently wanted to play - they were very visceral, very powerful, very satisfying. Running through the world and hitting stuff with an axe felt really good. So when we started on D3 one of our main objectives was not to match the game on that front, but to surpass it. And that's something I feel we've really accomplished when you look at the character classes, the skillset we've put on them is really imaginative, very over the top and original. We've really tried to go for classes that are not your standard warrior, rogue, mage. We're not trying to provide something that's unknown to the players, but rather classes that are not what you'd typically see.
oh well... thats life.
And how does one talk about establishing identity with new classes while bringing back the Barbarian?
It's my opinion that Jay said that basically as a quip directed at the din of moral outrage being made over [sarcasm] the destruction of the Diablo franchise. [/sarcasm]
Yeah.
But I also think that rather than overtly address most of those concerns, it is extremely possible that they're purposely holding-back information; that perhaps they are taking things more seriously than they are letting on; that they're just not acknowledging it.
Along the same line as the years of "Diablo III? What's that?", and "While we would one day like to return to the Diablo franchise, we have no plans at this time."
That's the way they've played this entire thing from the day LoD was released, and I feel pretty strongly that they are simply continuing in that fashion, and, hence, that the ranting and indignation over the perception of not being heard by the devs is a huge waste of energy.
Well said sir. Well said.
On another note. I do think fans will be upset at the new character unveiled whenever Blizzard so chooses to release that information. The reason being is like he said. It will seem very similar to a previous character. So whatever character that one seems to replace those people will feel slighted. Jay knows this and he is preparing us ahead of time. Though it won't stop the whining.
So the problem is that they are making a class that is similar to an old class, which will make people angry because...?
... because fans will be disappointed that their favourite class has been replaced? But they already said that no other classes will be returning, so the chance of their favourite class coming back is already zero (not including expansion). So why would the announcement of a new class be different to telling fans that no other classes are returning?
But how can they make an archetypal class that isn't similar to a previous class of the same type? They are archetypes, which means they have to be similar.
-Fireball the car door
-Lightning the circuit
-Stomp the pedal
-(any ideas?)
Anyway great interview, thanks.