Jay Wilson: “When you have a player who has more mobility, more health and endless power, essentially the only thing you can really do to challenge [the players] is to kill them.”

Bobydole: They keep touting potiopn dropping as if it's a new dynamic that's going to make the game more interesting. It's been around for decades as a game mechanic.

What made diablo interesting was the lifetap ability of most classes, it wasn't so much the potion popping, though that was important for casters.

What gets me is these guys claim they're fixing this that, putting in potion drops rather than potions, then they say some BS like this...

"We want diablo III to be beatable by just pushing one button."

No &#$%ing *(&#, genious. Diablo I and II both got that right for lower difficulties.

How about we stop trying to fix what isn't broken and refine it. Rather than, oh i don't know...

DEVOLVING ONE OF THE GREATEST GAMES OF ALL TIME TO MIMIC THE BASIC PLAY MECHANICS OF PREVIOUS BULL(*&#$ TITLES.

Are we making a blizzard game here or an SOE title? Quit making bull*(&$, water-down, vanilla gameplay descisions.

Blizzard doesn't cater to massive audiences, they create them.

Refine lifetap, Refine player run speeds, make synergies work better. Make some skills powerful damage-wise, but weaken a players speed/ defense over time. Make more dynamic buff abilities like berserk.

Go ahead, kill the messenger. Blizzard can do no wrong, right?, Empires never fall..

Bashiok: Hrmmm, I was really confused at first but I think you make a very valid point. However, game development and design just doesn't tend to work the same as it used to, and I'm not talking about Blizzard games, but just in general.

The days of design-by-luck are by no means gone, but far less accepting are players of flaws as valid rules. It requires a more methodical and player-serving approach. I actually think it may have to do somewhat with the increase in expectations of customer service and consumer rights... possibly the ever-shrinking attention span, regardless though, players have higher expectations from their games, and systems/rules that may have worked or were at least accepted as part of the game even a few years ago rarely fly these days. It's not the same market, and you're not applying to the same small group of core gamers anymore. Aside from that I don't think most still enjoy the masochistic, obscure, and often overly-complex or undefined game design of yore. Nostalgia blinds though.

Anyway... I don't know, I'm just a player myself, but I think I get where you're coming from and the best we can do is play games and enjoy ourselves. Maybe more than we ever have before, but nostalgia is such a powerful lie it makes it difficult to properly weigh the experiences.

I'm reading a bit between the lines of your posts though I think, and getting way too far from discussing health regeneration in Diablo games.

I know at this point I probably can't really allay your concerns in this specific case until you try it out, except to say that I believe you're wrong in regards to health globes. The overuse of potions was a path of least resistance, and I don't feel removing it detracts anything from the game except to say that it's something that was in a previous title in the series.

Is it just me or does this recent pic indeed show a darker dungeon then in the previous screen shots?

Bashiok: All of the screenshots being posted were taken pre-announcement, the same time the video was shot. So no, there isn't any difference. There are darker parts, and lighter parts, and while there are certain to be lighting tweaks as we go it isn't expected to change dramatically.

Well at least one thing I noticed new in the screen shots was the barbarian has gotten new battle scars from killing demons in this picture, but in the game play video when they zoom in he didn't have as many on him..

Bashiok: Those are actually fading crit blood sprays. When you get a crit death on a monster (that isn't an elemental crit death) it sprays the hero with blood (decals) and those then slowly fade over time. The screenshot shows them pretty much faded all the way out which gave them the appearance of scars. Maybe we can get some screenshots out that show the blood sprays a bit more effectively.

“We also tried to focus a little more on bringing characters back, and not just from ‘Diablo II’ but from ‘Diablo I,’” he said. “We feel like a lot of the focus is on ‘Diablo II’ but ‘Diablo I’ started it all and has a lot of really good stuff on the gameplay side and on the character side. So people can expect to see characters from ‘Diablo I,’ more characters from ‘Diablo II,’ and characters from some of the books. We’re definitely going to bring a few of them in.”

Warcry: Just for fun, what do you think about the discussion swirling around the "tone and color" of Diablo 3?

Travis: Personally, I think what they've done with Diablo 3 is fantastic. It seems pretty obvious that the mandate was to make the game look like a concept painting brought to life, and I think they've succeeded pretty wildly. The contrast and use of color really works well for an Action-RPG, where there are hordes of monsters and spells, and separation of individual entities is required for satisfying play. I can't wait to play it!

Blizzard is really second-to-none, and I have nothing but admiration for their work. I know a lot of people are lamenting what they see as a move away from the grim vibe of Diablo, but I think a lot of that gothic feel is really sold by a combination of sound, content and story, and the visceral nature of the game - and Blizzard certainly isn't skimping on the visceral if the videos are any indication. I also feel strongly that there's some pretty grim content they haven't bothered to show everyone just yet.