Here is the podcast which includes the whole interview (timestamps bellow, with my summary at end) and the addition comments on the "Hard Target Lock" in the console version. Learned while playing after interview with quote from CM in text below.
Confirmation of 4 player split screen & wrap up - Watch
I go into further details of each part along with the "Hard Target Lock" function after the interview - Watch
Quote from CMs on "Hard Target Lock"
"Hard Target" is located on L2, correct! Holding L2 will lock a target for a player, and the lock will remain in place until the player lets go of the L2 trigger.
***This was confirmed through direct email confirmation with CMs***
I have also included a transcribed version of the interview (OMG must find easy way) for your reading enjoyment.
All right everybody, here we are at Pax East interviewing with Diablo Expressions and Blizzard Entertainment for Diablo 3 on the PS3 and later coming out on the PS4. I am Here with...
Hi, I’m Julie Humphreys, Senior Producer working with the console group on Diablo 3, and for the last couple of years I’ve been helping to build and support the team that’s been making this awesome game.
All right, so let’s just get into the interview. About how long has the console version been in development for (aprox.)
So about two years ago, we started building the team with the first few critical highers. That was Josh Mosqueira, Lead Designer,Norbert Szabo, engine programmer, and myself as the Senior Producer. To start with it was just the three of us sitting in an office, trying to figure out how we’re going to take this awesome PC game and make it feel native to the console. So, we worked together for a little while, we started slowly building the team with other key highers who, ah, came from really deep console backgrounds and we brought them into Blizzard, and it was only about a year ago right around the time when the PC game was wrapping up to launch that we really started hardcore development on the console.
All right, with that, yesterday when I came in I hit up the Blizzard Booth, and I’m like, ‘let me get on now, get a little play tease in,” and I played about 15 minutes. Played about 5 minutes on the Barbarian because I’m not a real Barbarian person, but I went on the Demon Hunter because it just more my (style). I’m a ranged person, that’s what I like to play. I was shocked at how smooth everything was, how everything played out. I haven’t picked up a console controller in about 5 to 6 years, and within 10 minutes it was there (almost perfect controls) I was like, no looking at the controls, just picked it up naturally. So, with that, what were some of the challenges from going from the PC version to the PS3 version.
Yup, so the one of our overall philosophies of bringing Diablo 3 from the PC to the console was to make sure it felt hand built for the console. We wanted to take the Diablo 3 experience that you see and translate it so it felt native to the platform. So, some of the big changes, where we spent a lot of our time in making sure it feels that way are the controls. So, you know making sure the character controls feels good, how the camera works with the character, feels natural, tweaking and tuning pretty much every skill in the game to make sure it felt good with the controller. That has been one primary area of focus.
The second has really been the user interface because the user interface on the PC version works great with a mouse and keyboard, clicking and dragging mechanic...
It's dramatically different
...You have to use the analog sticks, the buttons, it's a very different experience. You also have the resolution of a television compared to the resolution of a PC screen. Taking all of that into account, making sure were presenting the same really deep game that's on the PC version, making sure we have all the same information, all the same great affixes and level items, but still presenting that information in a way that can be easily digested and acted on in the console version.
Yeah, so it doesn't become a wall of text, and people are like, 'Ah junk it, I don't care.'
Yeah, exactly.
Umm, so, just moving on, one of the things that I noticed on here while I was playing the Demon Hunter, and just moving around, killing stuff, and all of a sudden, 'Why is my Bola Shot going three times faster? What's this little green icon I've never seen before in the bottom left corner?' So when I asked around, they said it's a temporary power up that goes on. So, what led to the development of that power up or the ability? Exactly what is that and how does it work?
So, umm, one of the things that we've done on consoles to kinda streamline item management and make sure your not spending all your time in menus when we really want to be doing is killing monsters, getting great loot is we adopted a philosophy of dropping fewer items, but better quality items...
Yes
...so you're not spending all your time in the inventory, but one of the things we added on to make it still feel you are getting awesome things all the time was this idea of a "Shrine Globe". It's a temporary power up that can drop and gives you a little boost to your abilities. It's something else you can see, and quickly maneuver to pick up and give you a little boost and you feel like, 'Oh, I got something great!' It doesn't require you to go into your inventory and mess around with the menus.
Alright, so that's cool. I guess the other big addition to the console version vs. the PC version, hopefully for now, I say for now, can predict the things in the future, but is the dodge ability that the characters have. It makes the Demon Hunter, not, I won't say more playable, but makes it really so much more unique because now if you can really rely on your dodge, you can use your Discipline for everything else. So now you can dodge, lay a trap, and really get that feeling of your really a Demon Hunter, your trapping stuff, you're really setting up your kitting.
I'm really happy to hear your enjoying the evade mechanic. It's something we added to every class in the game. The reason why we added to the game on the console is that once we moved to a direct control scheme, where your actually directing and moving your character with the analog stick to, umm, you don't have some of the tackle advantages that you can have on the PC where you click on a spot and your character paths there, right, so, we need a way for you to quickly reposition your character yourself so you gain those tackle advantages. That's one of the reasons why we added it on the console. It makes a lot of sense with a controller, so that's what we've done.
Alright, so, going on from there. Now we went over the controls (briefly). How much of a hard transition was it? Like, was it five iterations in, was it like, 'Oh no this is terrible, we have to go back to the drawing board,' because it seems especially with a game where you're not using your "WASD" was it an easy transition to say use the D-Pad then go from there. Then you have to factor six abilities, so your typical "A,B, Y, X," is taken up by those and you have your Trigger Buttons. It seems you were trying to cram a lot in, but going through the inventory setup and the graphics, I guess just going back to the controller again, how hard was that to do?
Yeah, you know we went through a few iterations for sure. I think it's been a matter of a lot of finessing. A lot of tweaking and tuning to make sure it feels good. Some of the things came really naturally and obviously like using the left analog stick to move around, made a lot of sense and then beyond that sort of using your skills and which buttons do they map to default for the player and how we need to adjust when the skills function and feel good for the buttons; a lot of iteration went there. Just to make it clear, you will have "Elective Mode" on the console version as well, so, you can map any of your skills to any of the buttons.
Okay, because that was the natural follow up. 'Could we just move everything around?'
Absolutely.
Especially if we wanted to be an Archon mage (Wizard \^^/) 'Okay, Archon form, done!' Now I guess, going to the more technical side with the continuing of, I guess the PC and the console version is, can the console players, can they expect the same level of patching as the PC game has been getting? It seems every 6 weeks, 6 weeks to 8 weeks there's been a patch with a big addition, bug fixes, or a combination of the both as far as content for the PC version. Can the console people expect a regular interval of patching as well?
Right, so you know Blizzard is a company that's really committed to listening to the community and constantly trying to improve the game to meet the needs of our players in a way that makes sense for the long term. So, the same way the PC game has offered patches, we're really committed to offering title updates for the PS3 as it makes sense for the game. Timing on that is still TBD, but we want to make sure that we offer that to the community on console as well as PC.
So, I guess that wraps up the major questions I have, but is there anything else that you would like to add on to that we may not know about because I know I didn't know about the dropping of the power ups (Shrine Globes) or anything like that. Is there anything you'd like to add about the console version?
Yeah I think, today here at Pax we're showcasing the console version first time ever so we're making sure we're showing the core Diablo 3 experience as a singleplayer game, but I just wanted to mention one of the things we're really excited about with the product is that we are going to offer 4 player split screen co-op. So you can sit down with your buddies on the couch, your wife, your partner, whatever you want to do and plug-in and play together on the same screen, shared experience. Being in the world together, killing monsters, being right next to you, sharing in the joys of getting great loot, and as much fun as it is to playing game by yourself, or remotely online with other people, it's that much more fun able to play right next to each other, on the same couch, the same screen.
So that does it, this is Dr J Dredscythe from Diablo Expressions along with Julie Humphreys and Blizzard Entertainment. Thank you very much. Been a great time at Pax. Look forward to playing some more and that's it, moving along to the console version and BlizzCon at the end of the year. Thank You very much.
Here is the podcast which includes the whole interview (timestamps bellow, with my summary at end) and the addition comments on the "Hard Target Lock" in the console version. Learned while playing after interview with quote from CM in text below.
"Hard Target" is located on L2, correct! Holding L2 will lock a target for a player, and the lock will remain in place until the player lets go of the L2 trigger.
***This was confirmed through direct email confirmation with CMs***
I have also included a transcribed version of the interview (OMG must find easy way) for your reading enjoyment.
All right everybody, here we are at Pax East interviewing with Diablo Expressions and Blizzard Entertainment for Diablo 3 on the PS3 and later coming out on the PS4. I am Here with...
Hi, I’m Julie Humphreys, Senior Producer working with the console group on Diablo 3, and for the last couple of years I’ve been helping to build and support the team that’s been making this awesome game.
All right, so let’s just get into the interview. About how long has the console version been in development for (aprox.)
So about two years ago, we started building the team with the first few critical highers. That was Josh Mosqueira, Lead Designer,Norbert Szabo, engine programmer, and myself as the Senior Producer. To start with it was just the three of us sitting in an office, trying to figure out how we’re going to take this awesome PC game and make it feel native to the console. So, we worked together for a little while, we started slowly building the team with other key highers who, ah, came from really deep console backgrounds and we brought them into Blizzard, and it was only about a year ago right around the time when the PC game was wrapping up to launch that we really started hardcore development on the console.
All right, with that, yesterday when I came in I hit up the Blizzard Booth, and I’m like, ‘let me get on now, get a little play tease in,” and I played about 15 minutes. Played about 5 minutes on the Barbarian because I’m not a real Barbarian person, but I went on the Demon Hunter because it just more my (style). I’m a ranged person, that’s what I like to play. I was shocked at how smooth everything was, how everything played out. I haven’t picked up a console controller in about 5 to 6 years, and within 10 minutes it was there (almost perfect controls) I was like, no looking at the controls, just picked it up naturally. So, with that, what were some of the challenges from going from the PC version to the PS3 version.
Yup, so the one of our overall philosophies of bringing Diablo 3 from the PC to the console was to make sure it felt hand built for the console. We wanted to take the Diablo 3 experience that you see and translate it so it felt native to the platform. So, some of the big changes, where we spent a lot of our time in making sure it feels that way are the controls. So, you know making sure the character controls feels good, how the camera works with the character, feels natural, tweaking and tuning pretty much every skill in the game to make sure it felt good with the controller. That has been one primary area of focus.
The second has really been the user interface because the user interface on the PC version works great with a mouse and keyboard, clicking and dragging mechanic...
It's dramatically different
...You have to use the analog sticks, the buttons, it's a very different experience. You also have the resolution of a television compared to the resolution of a PC screen. Taking all of that into account, making sure were presenting the same really deep game that's on the PC version, making sure we have all the same information, all the same great affixes and level items, but still presenting that information in a way that can be easily digested and acted on in the console version.
Yeah, so it doesn't become a wall of text, and people are like, 'Ah junk it, I don't care.'
Yeah, exactly.
Umm, so, just moving on, one of the things that I noticed on here while I was playing the Demon Hunter, and just moving around, killing stuff, and all of a sudden, 'Why is my Bola Shot going three times faster? What's this little green icon I've never seen before in the bottom left corner?' So when I asked around, they said it's a temporary power up that goes on. So, what led to the development of that power up or the ability? Exactly what is that and how does it work?
So, umm, one of the things that we've done on consoles to kinda streamline item management and make sure your not spending all your time in menus when we really want to be doing is killing monsters, getting great loot is we adopted a philosophy of dropping fewer items, but better quality items...
Yes
...so you're not spending all your time in the inventory, but one of the things we added on to make it still feel you are getting awesome things all the time was this idea of a "Shrine Globe". It's a temporary power up that can drop and gives you a little boost to your abilities. It's something else you can see, and quickly maneuver to pick up and give you a little boost and you feel like, 'Oh, I got something great!' It doesn't require you to go into your inventory and mess around with the menus.
Alright, so that's cool. I guess the other big addition to the console version vs. the PC version, hopefully for now, I say for now, can predict the things in the future, but is the dodge ability that the characters have. It makes the Demon Hunter, not, I won't say more playable, but makes it really so much more unique because now if you can really rely on your dodge, you can use your Discipline for everything else. So now you can dodge, lay a trap, and really get that feeling of your really a Demon Hunter, your trapping stuff, you're really setting up your kitting.
I'm really happy to hear your enjoying the evade mechanic. It's something we added to every class in the game. The reason why we added to the game on the console is that once we moved to a direct control scheme, where your actually directing and moving your character with the analog stick to, umm, you don't have some of the tackle advantages that you can have on the PC where you click on a spot and your character paths there, right, so, we need a way for you to quickly reposition your character yourself so you gain those tackle advantages. That's one of the reasons why we added it on the console. It makes a lot of sense with a controller, so that's what we've done.
Alright, so, going on from there. Now we went over the controls (briefly). How much of a hard transition was it? Like, was it five iterations in, was it like, 'Oh no this is terrible, we have to go back to the drawing board,' because it seems especially with a game where you're not using your "WASD" was it an easy transition to say use the D-Pad then go from there. Then you have to factor six abilities, so your typical "A,B, Y, X," is taken up by those and you have your Trigger Buttons. It seems you were trying to cram a lot in, but going through the inventory setup and the graphics, I guess just going back to the controller again, how hard was that to do?
Yeah, you know we went through a few iterations for sure. I think it's been a matter of a lot of finessing. A lot of tweaking and tuning to make sure it feels good. Some of the things came really naturally and obviously like using the left analog stick to move around, made a lot of sense and then beyond that sort of using your skills and which buttons do they map to default for the player and how we need to adjust when the skills function and feel good for the buttons; a lot of iteration went there. Just to make it clear, you will have "Elective Mode" on the console version as well, so, you can map any of your skills to any of the buttons.
Okay, because that was the natural follow up. 'Could we just move everything around?'
Absolutely.
Especially if we wanted to be an Archon mage (Wizard \^^/) 'Okay, Archon form, done!' Now I guess, going to the more technical side with the continuing of, I guess the PC and the console version is, can the console players, can they expect the same level of patching as the PC game has been getting? It seems every 6 weeks, 6 weeks to 8 weeks there's been a patch with a big addition, bug fixes, or a combination of the both as far as content for the PC version. Can the console people expect a regular interval of patching as well?
Right, so you know Blizzard is a company that's really committed to listening to the community and constantly trying to improve the game to meet the needs of our players in a way that makes sense for the long term. So, the same way the PC game has offered patches, we're really committed to offering title updates for the PS3 as it makes sense for the game. Timing on that is still TBD, but we want to make sure that we offer that to the community on console as well as PC.
So, I guess that wraps up the major questions I have, but is there anything else that you would like to add on to that we may not know about because I know I didn't know about the dropping of the power ups (Shrine Globes) or anything like that. Is there anything you'd like to add about the console version?
Yeah I think, today here at Pax we're showcasing the console version first time ever so we're making sure we're showing the core Diablo 3 experience as a singleplayer game, but I just wanted to mention one of the things we're really excited about with the product is that we are going to offer 4 player split screen co-op. So you can sit down with your buddies on the couch, your wife, your partner, whatever you want to do and plug-in and play together on the same screen, shared experience. Being in the world together, killing monsters, being right next to you, sharing in the joys of getting great loot, and as much fun as it is to playing game by yourself, or remotely online with other people, it's that much more fun able to play right next to each other, on the same couch, the same screen.
So that does it, this is Dr J Dredscythe from Diablo Expressions along with Julie Humphreys and Blizzard Entertainment. Thank you very much. Been a great time at Pax. Look forward to playing some more and that's it, moving along to the console version and BlizzCon at the end of the year.
Thank You very much.
Alright thank you guys.
Ha. Bagstone.