DiabloFans Interview With the Diablo 3 Team
DiabloFans will be hosting an interview with game developers Josh Mosqueira, Travis Day and Wyatt Cheng tomorrow, Thursday morning. We've prepared with a very good number of questions, but you're free to share your own, which might get answered as well! Stick around!
Preferences Are the Same on Console Damage Numbers on Console. Are they shown?
We kept a lot of the options in the console version of Diablo III that you currently have, including damage numbers, advanced tooltips, health bars, and elective mode. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The Nephalem Valor Icon For anyone who never noticed, the Nephalem Valor icon is actually a picture of a dead dinosaur with a sword going through his neck. A closer look reveals that some of his scales are morphing into gold. You can actually find the larger icon at the bottom of the link below. Link
As a connoisseur of all things dinosaur, I can assure you that the Nephalem Valor icon you mentioned is actually a very dead Treasure Goblin with loot spilling out of his bag.
To be entirely fair, I hadn't actually stopped to consider the Nephalem Valor icon very carefully until you mentioned it, so it seems like a fun little Diablo III fact to me. Thanks for bringing it up! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Some Services Are Slowed Down Due to Maintenance
Hi Polarbear, currently our maintenance on the authentication servers is preventing us from seeing some of the account details. In a bit, when this has been resolved please submit a ticket with the request for us to look into this for you through our support portal.
You may not be able to access the portal or submit the ticket until the maintenance has been concluded. Thanks for your patience in the meanwhile, we'll be happy to help you get this sorted out. (Blue Tracker/ Official Forums)
An exciting new contest is coming to this year’s show: the BlizzCon2013 Talent Contest! Blizzard gamers are an incredibly talented bunch, and this is your opportunity to shine a spotlight on your skills and celebrate Blizzard gaming culture along with BlizzCon attendees and viewers from around the world.
Can you play the Diablo theme on a 12-string guitar? Can you sing Lament of the Highborn? Are you the living embodiment of Sarah Kerrigan? Does your band play a Blizzard-themed song you can’t wait for everyone to hear? Well, we can’t wait to watch you act, sing, dance, and strut your stuff live on stage at BlizzCon 2013!
To be considered, you’ll need to create a 2-minute video of you (or your band, troupe, or what have you) performing your Blizzard-themed talent, post it on YouTube, and submit a link (or if you’re part of a troupe, have your troupe’s spokesperson upload it). Below are some examples of the kind of acts we have in mind.
Remember, what follows are just some ideas and guidelines. We know you have skills we haven’t even dreamed of, so surprise us! We’re eagerly looking forward to seeing you in action.
Drama! Re-enact a scene or monologue from a Blizzard game
Comedy! Make us laugh Blizzard-inspired stand-up or sketch comedy
Music! Perform an instrumental or vocal cover of a Blizzard song, or write and perform your own original composition
Dance! Come up with an original dance routines set to Blizzard music or original Blizzard-themed compositions
Please don’t limit yourself, and don’t be afraid to show us your best, because we aren’t selecting finalists based on any pre-existing categories. Instead finalists will be selected based on talent, live performance (remember, you could be performing on stage!), humor, entertainment, originality, creativity, and strong Blizzard theming.
Submissions are now open, so check out the rules, then head over to the contest page (scroll down) to sign up.
Please feel free to email any questions you might have to BlizzConContest@blizzard.com!
Question 1: At what point does Gold become irrelevant in the game when items are selling for billions of gold each?
Question 2: Why are dropped rares worse than legendaries and worse than crafted items? Shouldn't found rares be the potentially best items in game, the crafted rares be about equal with legendary items?
Question 3: Why not have soft/hard caps on attributes (crit chance, crit damage, resists, etc.) for people to strive for to ensure varied loot, and so people can gear their characters differently once they hit a cap?
Question 4: When will all items drop and be socketed automatically with the most sockets possible? If an item can have a socket, and doesn't it is worthless to the player who found it and everyone else.
Question 5: Why is every ability tied to primary/weapon DPS? This means that your hero is utterly weak even at 60/100 if no gear is equipped. Why not give abilities a base damage that scales (due to your lack of skill trees) with your level and has a coefficient of damage based on weapon DPS/main stat? That way even if a player doesn't have 400% crit damage, 50% crit and 80% IAS they can still not feel ridiculously weak?
Question 6: When does power creep get to be too much? 500K DPS? Really?
Question 7: Will PvP ever be balanced separately? If not, why didn't you put the tech in place to do so? WoW PvP has been plagued by this for years, it should have been pretty obvious that D3 would be in the same boat.
Question 8: When will all skills/runes be balanced? With over 50% of skills and runes being so under performing that they may as well be removed, what plans are in place to make them competitive without having to rely on the RNG gods to drop items which could bolster their effects?
Question 9: Why not allow all items (end game) to be found in Hell, and leave inferno for a bragging rights/achievement/banner changer/cosmetic item bonus area? Giving people Paragon levels, MP levels, Neph Valor and other benefits for running Inferno just ensures that there are the people who can, and everyone else. The game should be about finding loot, not having to find loot to get a better chance to find the same loot. I guess the real question is, now that people are 60/100 and can farm MP10 with no problems and are asking for MP11+, at what point do you have to step back and consider that farming gear for the sake of farming the same gear more efficiently is not compelling gameplay?
Is there a particular reason there are not more than 4 types of gem in the game, as a plethora of gems could seriously improve customization with things like legendary gems that give specific properties that are unique and mostly non-numerical? For example, a gem that takes up two gem slots that gives 50% Magic Find would be awesome and maybe cause the player to reconsider just slotting in a +40 intelligence gem.
There have been some really well put together suggestion topics by some Dfans members that have had really positive feedback from the rest of our community.
They are suggestions though and are base ideas/start points that Blizzard could at least look at and iterate on if they find merit in any of the suggestions.
It would be great if Dfans members felt that if they put enough effort into these ideas (like some have done already) that they would be heard/seen by Blizzard, because if so I am sure there would be a lot more of them.
Even if Dfans could send Blizzard Developers/ Community Managers our top suggestion thread of the month..
Here is a list of some of the Best D3 idea posts in recent times...
Q: There's been a lot of discussion around making players less dependent on purchasing gear from the auction house. What about players who don't like selling gear on the AH either? Has the team considered ways in which to mitigate the feeling that the player is farming gear just so it can be traded for gold, for instance by adding some other form of item sink for high quality loot?
Q: Early in Diablo 3's development it was decided that loot would not become soulbound no matter how often it's equipped or traded. How does the team feel about this decision now? Is item supply inflation considered to be a problem?
Question: Would it be possible to create a journal that is account-wide rather than per character? It's fine if I can have the books drops for each character, but giving us an account-wide journal would mean that at any time, any character could listen to every books you had discovered collectively rather than piecemealing them. Or at the very least provide a checklist so that way it's easy to see which character is missing which lore books.
This is one of THE most outrageous, not to mention shameless, interviews that has ever happened in the history of mankind.
Bunch of mofos ought to be dragged from the private little world of theirs and "cast down with the sodomites". Although that won't change anything. But what else can we do? This community, even though plagued by 13-yr old Biebers, has put forth some amazingly thought out ideas that have the capability to change the very essence of this game (barring the already dead storyline -- we know who's responsible for that -- and the WoW-clone look and feel), and yet all the "devs" do is circle around their own unbelievably stupid "iterative design philosophy"... and then double it!!
I play this game because some part of me believes in miracles. But everytime I log in, I feel that there is no such thing as God... or Justice. Either way, this franchise is doomed unless we have a reboot (which is a gonna remain a dream).
Posted by Bashiok
It's intentional. We don't want a game where the most effective way to play is to dodge in and out of enemy attacks. It's not that difficult to do, and it's just not a very fun way to play.
So if dodge is now in the game and suddenly allowed "fun" does that not void Bashiok's statement and will it result in:
A: a fixed hitbox detection
B: introduction of dodge in the PC version.
C: nothing
PvP Question: Will there be any PvP for Diablo 3? Brawling does not count as the PvP you guys showed us pre-beta and under beta.
Diablo 3 on PS Vita
Question: Will it come after launch of Ps4?
Skillswap in town Question: Ever though on making the "W" key a skillswap while being in town? Have us swap between 2 different builds very fast.
Lock & Sell items
Question: Are we going to see a lock feature that does apply in not selling it to the vendor and at the same time have an "sell all" button that works only on objects that aren't locked in the inventory? I do not mean lock items, I mean lock areas, the grid that we see behind any item laying in the inventory. Lock a grid vertical x 2 rows could proven to be something nice to input.
Move items on AH Question: If AH is still around after the expansion, why not let us right click on an item and choose "move around" to move it across characters and stash while being in the AH?
Thorns
Question: When will the thorns be changed, you guys had an idea to make it better. Maybe it is for the huge itemization patch?
Hardcore more attractive Question: Are you going to give hardcore players something more in terms of items that are exclusive this gamemode? These items could be visuall appealing and do no buff for example, just for show and for some respect. Maybe something we can trigger once we hit 60 or paragon 100 or earlier even?
Gems and other materials
Question: Stack 500 - 1000 in general would be nice. Gems 500 or more would be much appreciated for example.
Girl at the well
Question: Why was this mini-event cut from the game? And will we see this sidequest/mini-event once more?
Dye wings Question: While dyes are being applied to legendaries, will you concider to make PC-version of the wings dye-able?
3rd Artisan sells us mini-events Question: If a third artisan are input in the game, for example The Mystic. Could she sell us events? Like, extra side-quests that will in the future unlock at random on hotspots? For example, act 1 - fields of misery. There is a small pond with water, but no strange monsters or enemies. If this event was bought, there could be more sidequests in a natural way.
Level-cap in expansion to 80? Question: Will the next level-cap be 80, and make paragon freeze until we reached the level-cap once more? 80 for expansion 1. 100 for expansion 2, if there is an expansion 2 coming in the future.
Dirgest
Question: Are we going to see more of Dirgest, the demon in the jewel?
Q1: Aside from Loot 2.0, what other areas of the game do you think are in the most need of improvement?
Q2: Maps are pretty linear in D3, are there any plans to improve the size and randomness in current or future acts?
Q3: How big is the Diablo team compared to WoW and Starcraft?
Q4: Can we expect to see more BoA gear in the future?
Q5: How do you view "challenge" in the current state of D3? do you feel its at a good place with MP or is it something your still looking to improve upon?
Q6: For future PvP is preset builds/skills something you've ever considered?
Q7: Can we expect to see more features from D2 to show up in D3 (runes, charms, horodric cube, skill trees, ladders, game creation)? or are you looking to distance your game from D2 and let D3 come into its own?
Q8: What is the design philosophy moving forward with skill runes? do you have plans to change how many of them fundamentally work or just adjust the numbers of how they currently work?
Q9: What is the design philosophy for future boss fights?
Q10: Regarding PvP, what lessons did you learn from team deathmatch that was never added? What type of PvP do you think will best fit D3?
Question #1:
D3 has hands down the best graphics/gameplay of any ARPG, but how do you feel the fundamental features of the game compare to games like Path of Exile, Torchlight 2 or even D2?
Question #2:
Do you guys have a really clear vision of how "Loot 2.0" is going to be implemented?
Question #3:
What is the design philosophy moving forward with the blacksmith, jeweler and mystique?
Question #4:
Can we get any teasers regarding the D3 xpac (big or small)?
Question #5:
Can we ever expect to see anything like the Path of Exile "maps" system in Diablo 3?
Can you give us your take on each class in the game currently (Barb, Wiz, WD, DH and Monk) and what the future plans or philosophy is with each of them moving forward?
Guys, it says at the beginning of the post that the interview will be "Thursday morning". You can stop asking questions now, even if they're sitting on Hawaii and "morning" isn't over yet, the interview protocol is probably pretty much finished (and hopefully in a few days/hours we'll get answers) :-)
1 - Considering it has been over 7 months since the last PvP blog......Are there any updates on when the PvP Patch will be released? What features it will contain? What PvP modes are being tested? What rewards will be offered?
2 - Are there plans to add a real endgame to D3? Things like a PvE Arena where you fight waves of monsters either solo or with a group? What about an Endless Dungeon? What about a maps system like Path of Exile/Torchlight?
3 - Can we get any additional detail on upcoming character customization features? I know the Paragon System is being modified but we don't have any added information yet.
A one hour long hype about how great diablo 3 gonna be on the console, with no new information at all, coupled with "wait till Blizzcon. Blizzcon will be great for anyone who loves the Diablo franchise"..
Basically all the diablo 3 team is doing nowadays is PR for the Xbox and Playstation version.
I will gladly eat my own words if iam wrong, but i think alot of you guys will get disappointed with this "Interview"
DiabloFans will be hosting an interview with game developers Josh Mosqueira, Travis Day and Wyatt Cheng tomorrow, Thursday morning. We've prepared with a very good number of questions, but you're free to share your own, which might get answered as well! Stick around!
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Damage Numbers on Console. Are they shown?
We kept a lot of the options in the console version of Diablo III that you currently have, including damage numbers, advanced tooltips, health bars, and elective mode. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The Nephalem Valor Icon
For anyone who never noticed, the Nephalem Valor icon is actually a picture of a dead dinosaur with a sword going through his neck. A closer look reveals that some of his scales are morphing into gold. You can actually find the larger icon at the bottom of the link below.
Link
As a connoisseur of all things dinosaur, I can assure you that the Nephalem Valor icon you mentioned is actually a very dead Treasure Goblin with loot spilling out of his bag.
To be entirely fair, I hadn't actually stopped to consider the Nephalem Valor icon very carefully until you mentioned it, so it seems like a fun little Diablo III fact to me. Thanks for bringing it up! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Some Services Are Slowed Down Due to Maintenance
Hi Polarbear, currently our maintenance on the authentication servers is preventing us from seeing some of the account details. In a bit, when this has been resolved please submit a ticket with the request for us to look into this for you through our support portal.
You may not be able to access the portal or submit the ticket until the maintenance has been concluded. Thanks for your patience in the meanwhile, we'll be happy to help you get this sorted out. (Blue Tracker/ Official Forums)
Enter the BlizzCon 2013 Talent Contest!
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Can you play the Diablo theme on a 12-string guitar? Can you sing Lament of the Highborn? Are you the living embodiment of Sarah Kerrigan? Does your band play a Blizzard-themed song you can’t wait for everyone to hear? Well, we can’t wait to watch you act, sing, dance, and strut your stuff live on stage at BlizzCon 2013!
To be considered, you’ll need to create a 2-minute video of you (or your band, troupe, or what have you) performing your Blizzard-themed talent, post it on YouTube, and submit a link (or if you’re part of a troupe, have your troupe’s spokesperson upload it). Below are some examples of the kind of acts we have in mind.
Remember, what follows are just some ideas and guidelines. We know you have skills we haven’t even dreamed of, so surprise us! We’re eagerly looking forward to seeing you in action.
Submissions are now open, so check out the rules, then head over to the contest page (scroll down) to sign up.
Please feel free to email any questions you might have to BlizzConContest@blizzard.com!
See you in the limelight!
Ha. Bagstone.
Question 2: Why are dropped rares worse than legendaries and worse than crafted items? Shouldn't found rares be the potentially best items in game, the crafted rares be about equal with legendary items?
Question 3: Why not have soft/hard caps on attributes (crit chance, crit damage, resists, etc.) for people to strive for to ensure varied loot, and so people can gear their characters differently once they hit a cap?
Question 4: When will all items drop and be socketed automatically with the most sockets possible? If an item can have a socket, and doesn't it is worthless to the player who found it and everyone else.
Question 5: Why is every ability tied to primary/weapon DPS? This means that your hero is utterly weak even at 60/100 if no gear is equipped. Why not give abilities a base damage that scales (due to your lack of skill trees) with your level and has a coefficient of damage based on weapon DPS/main stat? That way even if a player doesn't have 400% crit damage, 50% crit and 80% IAS they can still not feel ridiculously weak?
Question 6: When does power creep get to be too much? 500K DPS? Really?
Question 7: Will PvP ever be balanced separately? If not, why didn't you put the tech in place to do so? WoW PvP has been plagued by this for years, it should have been pretty obvious that D3 would be in the same boat.
Question 8: When will all skills/runes be balanced? With over 50% of skills and runes being so under performing that they may as well be removed, what plans are in place to make them competitive without having to rely on the RNG gods to drop items which could bolster their effects?
Question 9: Why not allow all items (end game) to be found in Hell, and leave inferno for a bragging rights/achievement/banner changer/cosmetic item bonus area? Giving people Paragon levels, MP levels, Neph Valor and other benefits for running Inferno just ensures that there are the people who can, and everyone else. The game should be about finding loot, not having to find loot to get a better chance to find the same loot. I guess the real question is, now that people are 60/100 and can farm MP10 with no problems and are asking for MP11+, at what point do you have to step back and consider that farming gear for the sake of farming the same gear more efficiently is not compelling gameplay?
They are suggestions though and are base ideas/start points that Blizzard could at least look at and iterate on if they find merit in any of the suggestions.
It would be great if Dfans members felt that if they put enough effort into these ideas (like some have done already) that they would be heard/seen by Blizzard, because if so I am sure there would be a lot more of them.
Even if Dfans could send Blizzard Developers/ Community Managers our top suggestion thread of the month..
Here is a list of some of the Best D3 idea posts in recent times...
1) Talisman –Edriel - http://www.diablofan...-hells-portals/
2) Mystic (Seals) – Edriel - http://www.diablofan...tic-pt-1-seals/
3) Mystic (Powers) – Edriel - http://www.diablofan...32#entry1181932
4) Potion/Tonics – KorgothTheBarbarian - http://www.diablofan...0-part-1-ideas/
5) Elemental Damage-KorgothTheBarbarian- http://www.diablofan...emental-damage/
6) Horadic Cube,Elixers & Runewords –Yellonek- http://www.diablofan...tion-transmute/
7) Druid Class - Bleu42 - http://www.diablofan...e-on-the-druid/
Q: Early in Diablo 3's development it was decided that loot would not become soulbound no matter how often it's equipped or traded. How does the team feel about this decision now? Is item supply inflation considered to be a problem?
Bunch of mofos ought to be dragged from the private little world of theirs and "cast down with the sodomites". Although that won't change anything. But what else can we do? This community, even though plagued by 13-yr old Biebers, has put forth some amazingly thought out ideas that have the capability to change the very essence of this game (barring the already dead storyline -- we know who's responsible for that -- and the WoW-clone look and feel), and yet all the "devs" do is circle around their own unbelievably stupid "iterative design philosophy"... and then double it!!
I play this game because some part of me believes in miracles. But everytime I log in, I feel that there is no such thing as God... or Justice. Either way, this franchise is doomed unless we have a reboot (which is a gonna remain a dream).
I posted this over a year ago: (http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4785118670#9)
This pretty much gives you a indication of how broken it can be.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ8D89Rd5No
To which I got the superb answer:
Posted by Bashiok
It's intentional. We don't want a game where the most effective way to play is to dodge in and out of enemy attacks. It's not that difficult to do, and it's just not a very fun way to play.
So if dodge is now in the game and suddenly allowed "fun" does that not void Bashiok's statement and will it result in:
A: a fixed hitbox detection
B: introduction of dodge in the PC version.
C: nothing
We all know Bashiok is a joke anyways, he didn't know anything about Diablo 2 or 3 and is despised on WoW forums as well.
Question: Will there be any PvP for Diablo 3? Brawling does not count as the PvP you guys showed us pre-beta and under beta.
Diablo 3 on PS Vita
Question: Will it come after launch of Ps4?
Skillswap in town
Question: Ever though on making the "W" key a skillswap while being in town? Have us swap between 2 different builds very fast.
Lock & Sell items
Question: Are we going to see a lock feature that does apply in not selling it to the vendor and at the same time have an "sell all" button that works only on objects that aren't locked in the inventory? I do not mean lock items, I mean lock areas, the grid that we see behind any item laying in the inventory. Lock a grid vertical x 2 rows could proven to be something nice to input.
Move items on AH
Question: If AH is still around after the expansion, why not let us right click on an item and choose "move around" to move it across characters and stash while being in the AH?
Thorns
Question: When will the thorns be changed, you guys had an idea to make it better. Maybe it is for the huge itemization patch?
Hardcore more attractive
Question: Are you going to give hardcore players something more in terms of items that are exclusive this gamemode? These items could be visuall appealing and do no buff for example, just for show and for some respect. Maybe something we can trigger once we hit 60 or paragon 100 or earlier even?
Gems and other materials
Question: Stack 500 - 1000 in general would be nice. Gems 500 or more would be much appreciated for example.
Girl at the well
Question: Why was this mini-event cut from the game? And will we see this sidequest/mini-event once more?
Dye wings
Question: While dyes are being applied to legendaries, will you concider to make PC-version of the wings dye-able?
3rd Artisan sells us mini-events
Question: If a third artisan are input in the game, for example The Mystic. Could she sell us events? Like, extra side-quests that will in the future unlock at random on hotspots? For example, act 1 - fields of misery. There is a small pond with water, but no strange monsters or enemies. If this event was bought, there could be more sidequests in a natural way.
Level-cap in expansion to 80?
Question: Will the next level-cap be 80, and make paragon freeze until we reached the level-cap once more? 80 for expansion 1. 100 for expansion 2, if there is an expansion 2 coming in the future.
Dirgest
Question: Are we going to see more of Dirgest, the demon in the jewel?
:: Enkeria [Twitter / Twitch / Website / Tattoos]
Q2: Maps are pretty linear in D3, are there any plans to improve the size and randomness in current or future acts?
Q3: How big is the Diablo team compared to WoW and Starcraft?
Q4: Can we expect to see more BoA gear in the future?
Q5: How do you view "challenge" in the current state of D3? do you feel its at a good place with MP or is it something your still looking to improve upon?
Q6: For future PvP is preset builds/skills something you've ever considered?
Q7: Can we expect to see more features from D2 to show up in D3 (runes, charms, horodric cube, skill trees, ladders, game creation)? or are you looking to distance your game from D2 and let D3 come into its own?
Q8: What is the design philosophy moving forward with skill runes? do you have plans to change how many of them fundamentally work or just adjust the numbers of how they currently work?
Q9: What is the design philosophy for future boss fights?
Q10: Regarding PvP, what lessons did you learn from team deathmatch that was never added? What type of PvP do you think will best fit D3?
D3 has hands down the best graphics/gameplay of any ARPG, but how do you feel the fundamental features of the game compare to games like Path of Exile, Torchlight 2 or even D2?
Question #2:
Do you guys have a really clear vision of how "Loot 2.0" is going to be implemented?
Question #3:
What is the design philosophy moving forward with the blacksmith, jeweler and mystique?
Question #4:
Can we get any teasers regarding the D3 xpac (big or small)?
Question #5:
Can we ever expect to see anything like the Path of Exile "maps" system in Diablo 3?
1 - Considering it has been over 7 months since the last PvP blog......Are there any updates on when the PvP Patch will be released? What features it will contain? What PvP modes are being tested? What rewards will be offered?
2 - Are there plans to add a real endgame to D3? Things like a PvE Arena where you fight waves of monsters either solo or with a group? What about an Endless Dungeon? What about a maps system like Path of Exile/Torchlight?
3 - Can we get any additional detail on upcoming character customization features? I know the Paragon System is being modified but we don't have any added information yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49gzMvjgdME
A one hour long hype about how great diablo 3 gonna be on the console, with no new information at all, coupled with "wait till Blizzcon. Blizzcon will be great for anyone who loves the Diablo franchise"..
Basically all the diablo 3 team is doing nowadays is PR for the Xbox and Playstation version.
I will gladly eat my own words if iam wrong, but i think alot of you guys will get disappointed with this "Interview"
Whats up with PVP ?