DiabloFans

Quote from "AlphaX" »

One long ass game, and the option to skip over would have to be slickly done.

Lol - you'd have to approach Deckard Cain after the conclusion of Diablo 1 and he'd ask you for the ancient words that bind spirit with time ...


and then you enter your product keys for D2 and D2X.

Good point!

I totally overlooked the GW simliarities in my suggestion.

Ok - so let's have GW with Diablo universe. Fine with me!

The world of Sanctuary has plenty of lore, making it an ideal candidate for an MMO.

That said, why does the MMO have to be conventional in its construction?

Technically, D1/D2/D2X are not "MMO" by today's standards, but consider how you reach your instanced game rooms - through a monotonous chat client.

Super 90's.

Take that chat window and use real avatars instead - essentially having each instance a branch of a main city - therefore, instead of each game having its own instance of Lut Gholein, have Lut Gholein be a hub where all players gather (with inns, guild housing, etc.) and each dungeon crawl be instanced. That way you eliminate silly chat windows (or at least make them a means of communication and not the entire experience), can now create an auction environment (meaning the economy is more stable and current) and have a greater chance of seeing awesome PvP instances instead of having to wander outside into the Blood Moor for duels. (kind of like WoW, but think about it - all of Diablo gameplay is an instance, why not incorporate more face-to-face MMO elements).

WoW instances involve getting booted when leaving the raid, but for Diablo, why not make it so that you can re-group upon entering an instance? This creates the possibility for different quest and competition ideas. Check this out:

Let's say you have a group of 18 ready to go, you divide into 3 teams of 6 and you embark on a race-like quest where the first group to accomplish a certain goal receives good rewards to split amongst themselves (or is auto-rewarded individually, but equally, or even based on char-level). This could be fun for intra-guild promotion or inter-guild competition (without having to resort to a permanent faction system). It's just one of any number of possiblites with this setup. Or you could even go solo - 8 man race, winner take all.

So it might not be a traditional no-borders MMO, but if they give it a more personal touch without the boring chat, it's still Diablo, but cooler. Then you can actually see when some badass (*ahem* probably me) is weilding a
super elite weapon instead of just takin his word for it. Much cooler imo.

And if you try to dissolve them in Pepsi while snorting Pixie Stix you're in real trouble.

But those days have long since passed me by...

*sigh*

I don't wanna be the guy to piss on the party but wasn't the gamingsteve.com article roundly rejected when it surfaced as a fabrication?

The ideas are cool, but I remember somebody debunking its credibility.

Also, does anyone have a copy of the article over at blizzplanet saved they can post or link to? Just curious as to what it really said and why it was deemed "sensitive" material by the poster.

Wishful thinking or not...

I like it.

Hey does anyone have a cached link to the old "rumored" pages of IGN Diablo 3 coverage?

Did anyone rule out the possibility of a prequel?

Hear me out.

Has anyone seen a legitimate prequel to any series in the history of gaming? We know in movies and books it's been a staple but I am unaware of any real prequels in the gaming scene.

What's to say we don't play this universe over again from even futher before than Diablo 1 started?

I'm talking if you are up on your lore (and if you listen to Richard A. Knaak) then you'll be enticed by the possiblity of fighting in the Sin War itself and even possibly the entire gammut of conflicts that encompass the lore of Sanctuary.

I believe that if Blizz knows what's good for them they will take the story of Sanctuary and run with it - knowing we've seen where our battles have taken us thus far - why not venture back (a la Caverns of Time in WoW on a MASSIVE SCALE) into what shaped the Diablo universe and battle some age-old demons in a different light?

Can't hurt right?

Maybe I'm wrong. But there is too much lore and world-shaping story to throw away here - if not a prequel then a game that encaptures all that there is to offer in Sanctuary. I want to travel to all the towns and cities that we've been shut off from. What about Kehjistan and the battle of Viz-jun? Let's board boats and travel to the Amazon isles of Lycander, Philios and Skovas. Let's meet the druids face to face in Scosglen.

How about it? We've only discussed what happens after D2X but nothing of what led up to it, which I believe is a far deeper story than what we've experienced thus far.

This is the Diablo 3 I am searching for. MMO or not, this game should bring us the entire story. Blizzard can close the book after they give us all there is to offer as far as I'm concerned.

I had a look at that Blizzcon schedule from Worldofwar.net.

It raises some questions.

A) Not that I don't trust worldofwar.net but as far as I can tell, Blizzard hasn't released an official schedule on their Blizzcon site so this schedule is unofficial at best.

What is the "Expanded Universe" section on day 2 at 5:00pm in Rm 204? Not as though I'd expect Blizz to announce a major project to a small room of fans, but I wouldn't put it past old Blue to slip something in there while only a few are looking.

I won't be elated or disappointed until next Saturday at 10:00pm when I'm certain of the news that comes out of the convention.

Similar doubts are discussed on the official BC forums: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=442902637&sid=1

I totally agree. Although it is a fact that SC2 was announced prior to a D3 announcement. So is it safe to say that D3 will be released after SC2? I'm fairly certain that there has been somewhat confirmed news that the next Diablo title has been scrapped and reworked. Does this mean that we could be facing a one-two punch of epic proportions?

I'm excited to see if the next Diablo title is actually more like 70% complete whereas SC2 may be 35% complete (totally arbitrary numbers, but for the sake of argument that's what I picked) because of its status as having already been worked on.

Would it anger SC fans to see their game announced prior to a Diablo title and see that title come out of the gates quicker than SC2?

My guess is no because SC fans already have a great preview of what to expect and a hands-on experience awaiting them at Blizzcon with much more content to be added to the SC2 site in the coming months.

Their exposure to a title that doesn't fall in the same realm (hopefully) as a new Diablo title will douse any angst that a longer wait is in store. After all, SC:Ghost was supposed to be the new SC title and was publicly scrapped after having a website and fanfare devoted to it. Maybe this setback prompted a longer revision process for the Blizz team whereas Diablo was privately scrapped and re-worked further back and has since gained much more momentum.

I'm so intersted to see the developments. I hope all the news coming out of Blizzcon is positive and, moreover, more evenly distributed across the three franchises.

I realize I sort of took the discussion in a different direction there, but I had nothing to refute there - I'm on the same page. D3 should pick up new fans and appeal to long-standing fans.

I am in the group who discovered Diablo (I) around the age of 11 (when it was released, 1996) and my obsession with Blizzard products grew from there. A friend of mine introduced me to Warcraft (which was a 1994 release, I had found out about it after my Diablo foray) and at the time I was unaware that it was a Blizzard game. It came as no surprise that games as good as WC1 and D1 were produced by the same outfit.

My point is since I was hooked at that ripe age on Blizzard software and had firmly picked my favorite of their fledgling franchises, is it not unwise of Blizz to unleash a new franchise so as to provide some new footing for younger players to grow into life-long Blizzard loyalists?

Believe me - I'll go nuts if Blizz doesn't announce Diablo 3 soon, but it's not altogether unreasonable to think that they have a new series brewing for sometime in the forseeable future.

Is it not unrealistic to think that somewhere in the bowels of Blizzard HQ there may be an elusive "Team 4" that has just begun preliminary work on a new franchise?

Makkara, I second that. College = great time to play games and go nuts.

I played some WoW in college among others and found I had plenty of time for gaming, academics and an active social life. In fact, I found lots of time to meet friends online and play Company of Heroes and CoD.

Don't worry about rushing through college because you might find that it ends up being the greatest time of your life. I speak for myself, however, so I can't speculate on anyone else's feelings about it. I'm just offering some opinion

Heh, much appreciated I actually just got back from a small trip to Atlantic City - and subsequently spent enough time on the beach to be burned on at least half of my body. During that time I hadn't thought of a video game (except, uh, I guess you could count video poker).

Back to the topic though - does anyone have a timeline where we can see the time from announcement to completion on a Blizzard project, more specifically something from the Diablo series? Maybe a few magazine articles archived away somewhere will let us know if there's an (hard to describe it this way) "average" completion time for the series.

Also, does anyone know how big the team was that developed D1/D2/D2X? I realize this should reflect the fact that there needn't be any 3d modellers, etc. during those years, but was it a massive effort on Blizz's part? In other words, this 40-person team 3 we're speaking of, does it compare to what manpower Blizz has thrown at previous Diablo titles?

I graduated from a four-year university this past May and will be shortly (hopefully, pending the response of the companies in question) going on a tour of interviews for full-time positions in the IT industry.

I know I'm not hanging up my gamer shoes when my "real" life starts.

I'm sure in the not-so-distant future that children and family will come into question at which point my gaming desires and needs may evolve into something more along the lines which Little Boy described. That is, short, fulfilling bursts of enjoyment be it online or off.

Either way - and I've expressed my sentiment before - I'm absolutely pulling for Diablo 3 to be announced in the neighborhood of a week from tomorrow.

Quote from "TheOctagon" »

To be entirely honest, I prefer to stick to fact and reason with my assessments of the coming announcement at Blizzcon.

I'll instead abandon reason in this particular instance and instead give into my baser instincts.

** never drink and post **

Let that be a lesson to you all.

Like I mentioned in my stupor-laden post earlier this morning, I highly anticipate any new developments in the Diablo universe and precisely for the reason that I've played World of Warcraft and even have friends who are dedicated to that title (and they know damn well that Diablo was their game of choice for years). Not to mention that Diablo is STILL my game of choice.

I've found that WoW in its early days was a fairly satisfying experience. It wasn't polluted with some of the more annoying trends of today's WoW environment. I think fewer players on fewer servers (I know, some were nearly bursting at capacity) helped the experience somewhat.

In addition, WoW has a glowy, cartoony feel to it. Most of the time it didn't bother me, but when I really thought about it, I felt most of the environments and player characters could be so much more intense. Obviously this is in keeping with the overall "less mature" feel (I really don't want to offend anyone with that statement, but I call 'em like I see 'em) of the Warcraft universe.

Imagine the Diablo universe set in its true, fully roamable, form. What would it be like to look up at the sky for once in Sanctuary and see the soot and ash of the demons who you've just incincerated floating ominously against a pale orange sky? Or, perhaps, you enter a city (which would be more developed hopefully) and it's just as though you sauntered into a dark, medieval, war-torn citadel, not a playful bubbly little castle town.

The possibilities are exciting to say the least, but these are my reasons for joy over anything ... anything ... Diablo related.

I realize I'm posting like a madman, but I just found some interesting words from Rob Pardo of Blizz noting that SC:Ghost is off the table.

I followed a link from blizzplanet.com but here's the full article.

Enjoy.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6176&Itemid=2

To be entirely honest, I prefer to stick to fact and reason with my assessments of the coming announcement at Blizzcon.

I'll instead abandon reason in this particular instance and instead give into my baser instincts.

That being said, has anyone seen the recent banner displayed on the Battle.net website (at the time of posting if you click on the number 2 slot of the banner slideshow you'll see what I'm talking about)?

Clearly - in accordance with their slogan of "a celebration of the Warcraft, Starcraft and, Diablo franchises and communities" they have displayed, in more prominent detail than before - the Lord of Terror himself - our pal and yours, Diablo.

Of course, this could be to lead us to believe that there is a coming announcement for Diablo - but I ask you this (and I honestly have no answer to this, so I'll throw this to the mercy of the faithful denizens of Diablo3.com to reply);

Has there been in Blizzcon's humble past a reference so bold to the *entire* trinity of titles such as the one being displayed this year?

Moreover, has there been even an allusion quite like this as to the reality of a new Diablo game in the past, mmm, 4 years? Especially after the news broke of the majority of Blizzard North heading to greener pastures?

For the record, I hope more than anything that we see a new Diablo title, regardless of its true gameplay nature (MMO or otherwise), coming to fruition within the next year or two.