(Source) The rest of an interview we saw last week has recently been posted on GameFront.com, and the topics are all very near to our hearts. Lead Technical Artist Julian Love, who has been working on the game for some years, had a nice little chat with CJ Miozzi, and while much of the interview is sadly nothing new, there's still a few nuggets that make it worth reading.
I've included the more interesting bits here. To read the full interview, which we highly encourage you to do, please see the article here. But beware: This may contain some content that some view as spoilers. To read more on the modding portion of this interview, check out our full modding article here.
Official Blizzard Quote:
GF: Was there ever a point in the development process when D3 would have been an MMO?
No, I don’t think there was ever a serious point. At the earlier stages, there were certainly many ideas being tossed around. There were many people at that point who where bitten by the MMO bug, but there was also people who thought, “hey, we should make a fighting game, or an adventure game.” So I think there were some phases when we weren’t serious and entertained a lot of ideas, but they were during that early stage when we just wanted to throw a lot of spaghetti at the wall and see what stuck. Even then, with the tools we were using, it looked more like a Diablo game than anything else.
GF: Has development started on any expansions?
No. We’re really focused on getting the game out the door, which is what we’ve been focused on for the last two years. We want it to be awesome; we want it to be the definitive successor to the Diablo series.
GF: While there will be no official mod tools for Diablo 3, does Blizzard condone D3 mods? (Covered here)
There’s no direct intent to say that we don’t want D3 to be moddable. And, to be honest with you, the technology itself, on just a fundamental level, makes this the most moddable version of Diablo there’s ever been.
However, we have these other goals that supersede modding; we want to provide a safe and secure experience for players to play in and trade items in, and in order to do that, we had to make the game online play only. Once we made that decision, that effectively eliminated the possibility of having moddable games, since you’re going to have to connect to our service in order to play. So that’s a slight consequence of our online-only decision.
I’ll say that there’s never really been an intention with past Diablo games to make them moddable, either; it’s just that people found a way to make it happen. It’s not necessarily something we went out of our way to support.
GF: Hacked private servers were created for World of Warcraft; odds are there will eventually be a modded server or a way to play Diablo 3 without b.net, at which point people will be able to make mods. Would blizzard support such actions?
I think people will have a very difficult time doing that. I don’t think we’d be in a position where we can support that sort of endeavor, because it really falls outside of our development focus, which really is to provide this secure and high-quality experience that really demands an online-only game experience.
Cover of BlizzCon 2011's Program
GF: Will D3 compete with League of Legends, DOTA 2, and other MOBA titles in the eSports scene?
Absolutely not. There is no intention to make D3 into an eSport, and we are actively making design decisions to prevent it as being perceived as or even accidentally falling into the area of eSports. It’s something we’re very aware of. The intention is to recognize that players want to beat the crap out of each other, and to find a better way for them to do so than what D2 offered.
PvP of the past wasn’t so much a feature as it was an afterthought, or at least that’s the way it felt. So the way people tended to beat each other up was by socially engineering them into a situation in which they could quickly die. And that wasn’t very fun.
So by creating its own space for PvP, we could keep the element of fun, but do it in a place where it’s fair.
GF: Diablo is being depicted in a drastically different art style than in D2; less hulking, more slender. Care to comment?
We had a lot of talk early on about how we should bring Diablo back, what we should aim for in the art style perspective. A lot of monsters are re-treated when brought back from game to game. One of the discussions centered around him being the Lord of Terror, and whether we needed him to be massive in order to equate terror. In the end, the feeling was that wasn’t necessarily the way to convey terror. That’s when we started exploring lots of different takes on Diablo, dozens and dozens and dozens of different concepts, including one where he was half-snake…
GF: You’ve been using the pronoun “he.” Is Diablo definitely male?
You know, demons don’t really have a gender.
So, there you have it. Do you think Julian Love's view of dueling's role in Diablo II, and the Diablo franchise, is accurate with your play experiences in previous games? Should attention focus on more "hardcore" PvP aspects, like making Diablo III a viable competitor in the growing eSports community? Does it makes sense for the Lord of Terror to be hyped-up on estrogen?
Personally, I think Julian needs to learn how to interview. Asking "will you support people using your game illegally?" is a downright waste of a question. And I also think D3 has a chance with it NOT being an esport, to make lots of different types of pvp game modes with the sole purpose of being fun.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Blizzard used to care about releasing Diablo III, then they all took an arrow in the knee...
GF: Hacked private servers were created for World of Warcraft; odds are there will eventually be a modded server or a way to play Diablo 3 without b.net, at which point people will be able to make mods. Would blizzard support such actions?
I think people will have a very difficult time doing that.
Uh, there are already private/emulator servers for the Diablo 3 beta, how can they not expect this to happen?
I wondered about that, too. It's curious how out-of-touch some of these leads are with very pertinent topics. They keep wanting to pretend that this kind of stuff won't happen, but the truth is that there will be mods and private servers and stuff like this, anyway. The most recent edition of GameInformer called Diablo III one of the most anticipated games of the decade. With a playerbase like that, there's no way they couldn't expect this stuff. That t happened so quickly with the beta only strengthens the argument.
I think it's fully possible they will eventually be able to emulate the servers in a way that is very similar to the official ones, but it will still be a pretty significant dip in quality.
Not worth it IMO.
Also, I really want to see the Diablo concepts they did! I hope some of them are in the art book in the CE, or are made available in other ways. <3 the concept team!
I have to say that Blizzard conveying the message that Diablo 3 will NOT be an eSport game is one of the major reasons why I want to play this game. Too many MMO's out there now push for the PvP balance and end up screwing PvE'ers and this is not only regarding WoW (although they have done a much better job at balancing between the two in comparison to other games). I am not a PvP'er nor do I ever see myself being one so I usually end up getting the short end of the stick when it comes to MMO's when they try to balance PvP. Also, as far as I know, this may well be the first major game out there that does not have intentions of balancing PvP, at least not severely.
In regards to modding, I can see where they're coming from. Even if they secretly support modding, they cannot outright say it. After all, how would it sound if a company released a full-fledged product only to say, "This new game we're coming out with, feel free to change it however you like"? It'll only damage their integrity as a company. That's not to say that people won't do it, but Blizzard can't openly say that they support it. The only reason why I think this is because they have not said that they would take legal actions against those people/servers, that's not to say that they won't either though.
GF: Hacked private servers were created for World of Warcraft; odds are there will eventually be a modded server or a way to play Diablo 3 without b.net, at which point people will be able to make mods. Would blizzard support such actions?
I think people will have a very difficult time doing that.
Uh, there are already private/emulator servers for the Diablo 3 beta, how can they not expect this to happen?
I wondered about that, too. It's curious how out-of-touch some of these leads are with very pertinent topics. They keep wanting to pretend that this kind of stuff won't happen, but the truth is that there will be mods and private servers and stuff like this, anyway. The most recent edition of GameInformer called Diablo III one of the most anticipated games of the decade. With a playerbase like that, there's no way they couldn't expect this stuff. That t happened so quickly with the beta only strengthens the argument.
I agree. It's all very confusing. The entire beta is (nearly) completely unobfuscated, and yet Blue expects fans not to create emulated servers?
No. Blizzard is full of very intelligent people. There is definitely a defined policy on the matter, but I do believe they might be holding off PR-wise until they have the definitive Terms of Service.
However, we have these other goals that supersede modding; we want to provide a safe and secure experience for players to play in and trade items in, and in order to do that, we had to make the game online play only. Once we made that decision, that effectively eliminated the possibility of having moddable games, since you’re going to have to connect to our service in order to play. So that’s a slight consequence of our online-only decision.
Let's see:
WoW
1) Online only
2) Blizzard wants there to be safe and secure trading (and playing).
So...what's the ACTUAL reason they are not making D3 moddable?
is it just me, or are these the stupidest questions that could have been asked? what a waste of time. "Are you going to support modding even though you aren't releasing modding tools and have said on record many times that you dont support modding?" STFU
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I've included the more interesting bits here. To read the full interview, which we highly encourage you to do, please see the article here. But beware: This may contain some content that some view as spoilers. To read more on the modding portion of this interview, check out our full modding article here.
Official Blizzard Quote:
GF: Was there ever a point in the development process when D3 would have been an MMO?
No, I don’t think there was ever a serious point. At the earlier stages, there were certainly many ideas being tossed around. There were many people at that point who where bitten by the MMO bug, but there was also people who thought, “hey, we should make a fighting game, or an adventure game.” So I think there were some phases when we weren’t serious and entertained a lot of ideas, but they were during that early stage when we just wanted to throw a lot of spaghetti at the wall and see what stuck. Even then, with the tools we were using, it looked more like a Diablo game than anything else.
GF: Has development started on any expansions?
No. We’re really focused on getting the game out the door, which is what we’ve been focused on for the last two years. We want it to be awesome; we want it to be the definitive successor to the Diablo series.
GF: While there will be no official mod tools for Diablo 3, does Blizzard condone D3 mods? (Covered here)
There’s no direct intent to say that we don’t want D3 to be moddable. And, to be honest with you, the technology itself, on just a fundamental level, makes this the most moddable version of Diablo there’s ever been.
However, we have these other goals that supersede modding; we want to provide a safe and secure experience for players to play in and trade items in, and in order to do that, we had to make the game online play only. Once we made that decision, that effectively eliminated the possibility of having moddable games, since you’re going to have to connect to our service in order to play. So that’s a slight consequence of our online-only decision.
I’ll say that there’s never really been an intention with past Diablo games to make them moddable, either; it’s just that people found a way to make it happen. It’s not necessarily something we went out of our way to support.
GF: Hacked private servers were created for World of Warcraft; odds are there will eventually be a modded server or a way to play Diablo 3 without b.net, at which point people will be able to make mods. Would blizzard support such actions?
I think people will have a very difficult time doing that. I don’t think we’d be in a position where we can support that sort of endeavor, because it really falls outside of our development focus, which really is to provide this secure and high-quality experience that really demands an online-only game experience.
Absolutely not. There is no intention to make D3 into an eSport, and we are actively making design decisions to prevent it as being perceived as or even accidentally falling into the area of eSports. It’s something we’re very aware of. The intention is to recognize that players want to beat the crap out of each other, and to find a better way for them to do so than what D2 offered.
PvP of the past wasn’t so much a feature as it was an afterthought, or at least that’s the way it felt. So the way people tended to beat each other up was by socially engineering them into a situation in which they could quickly die. And that wasn’t very fun.
So by creating its own space for PvP, we could keep the element of fun, but do it in a place where it’s fair.
GF: Diablo is being depicted in a drastically different art style than in D2; less hulking, more slender. Care to comment?
We had a lot of talk early on about how we should bring Diablo back, what we should aim for in the art style perspective. A lot of monsters are re-treated when brought back from game to game. One of the discussions centered around him being the Lord of Terror, and whether we needed him to be massive in order to equate terror. In the end, the feeling was that wasn’t necessarily the way to convey terror. That’s when we started exploring lots of different takes on Diablo, dozens and dozens and dozens of different concepts, including one where he was half-snake…
GF: You’ve been using the pronoun “he.” Is Diablo definitely male?
You know, demons don’t really have a gender.
So, there you have it. Do you think Julian Love's view of dueling's role in Diablo II, and the Diablo franchise, is accurate with your play experiences in previous games? Should attention focus on more "hardcore" PvP aspects, like making Diablo III a viable competitor in the growing eSports community? Does it makes sense for the Lord of Terror to be hyped-up on estrogen?
I wondered about that, too. It's curious how out-of-touch some of these leads are with very pertinent topics. They keep wanting to pretend that this kind of stuff won't happen, but the truth is that there will be mods and private servers and stuff like this, anyway. The most recent edition of GameInformer called Diablo III one of the most anticipated games of the decade. With a playerbase like that, there's no way they couldn't expect this stuff. That t happened so quickly with the beta only strengthens the argument.
Not worth it IMO.
Also, I really want to see the Diablo concepts they did! I hope some of them are in the art book in the CE, or are made available in other ways. <3 the concept team!
In regards to modding, I can see where they're coming from. Even if they secretly support modding, they cannot outright say it. After all, how would it sound if a company released a full-fledged product only to say, "This new game we're coming out with, feel free to change it however you like"? It'll only damage their integrity as a company. That's not to say that people won't do it, but Blizzard can't openly say that they support it. The only reason why I think this is because they have not said that they would take legal actions against those people/servers, that's not to say that they won't either though.
No. Blizzard is full of very intelligent people. There is definitely a defined policy on the matter, but I do believe they might be holding off PR-wise until they have the definitive Terms of Service.
Let's see:
WoW
1) Online only
2) Blizzard wants there to be safe and secure trading (and playing).
So...what's the ACTUAL reason they are not making D3 moddable?