DiabloFans

After having played the demo at BlizzCon, a new article in the Chicago Tribune is describing Diablo 3 as being very much like Diablo 2 from the 90s in terms of style. Take a look at what writer Gus Mastrapa had to say about the aesthetics of the game as well as addressing the widely discussed controversy of Diablo 3's color palette:

"Let's just get this out of the way. The people worried about the look of "Diablo III" being too colorful are idiots. They're straight-up wrong. The last thing we need is Blizzard taking these people seriously. Because if there's a problem at all with "Diablo III" (and I'm not sure that there is), it's that the game isn't straying far enough from the grim geek aesthetics of the '90s.

At BlizzCon this year, I had the opportunity to hack-and-slash my way through buzzing Sand Wasps and maddened cultists. I painted the desert with their blood. And the frequent red flash of arterial spray was the brightest color to meet my squinting eyes.

We've seen the offending screenshots, depicting cavernous dungeons lit by the pale glow of ancient magicks and forests painted an autumnal ochre. Fans went crazy over those early images; infuriated, apparently, by Blizzard's use of the entire color palette -- especially the rainbow that shone in the misty reaches below a broken bridge. To most gamers, that arcing band of color was like Kryptonite. I found all those screenshots to be quite beautiful.

What we saw at BlizzCon wasn't quite so lovely. The Sundered Pass was a wind-blown path snaking between jutting black rock. Our party fought its way between the tilting stone spires, slashing bugs, cutting down Dune Threshers -- bigger, fiercer critters that crawl on their bellies. Rotting corpses of creatures alien and unknown curled in corners. Alcoves hid treasures and ambushes in nearly equal share. But always there was death -- delivered by the hands of Barbarian, Monk and Witch Doctor.

All of these moments are accentuated by the game's art style. One that isn't stylized or cartoony, as some critics would claim. True, "Diablo III" doesn't look like a game from the '90s anymore ---it looks like the box art of a game from the '90s. Recall the aesthetic: the future gore of "DOOM," the disarming orange and yellow of "Planescape: Torment" and the gothic lettering of :"Diablo." These were a culmination of male teen fantasy -- an amalgamation of the mature comic book, Nine Inch Nails angst and cyberpunk style, like the now-cliched leather trenchcoats donned by Neo in "The Matrix." And so, while you won't see the Monk wearing William Gibson-inspired mirrorshades, the aesthetic soul of the '90s is preserved in "Diablo III", for better or for worse. I'm going to say for better.

Play the levels we were exposed to at BlizzCon and you'll feel transported not only to the fantastic world of "Diablo III", but back to the '90s. Because despite the gorgeous visuals dancing across the monitor, images that feel torn straight from the cover of a "Dragonlance" novel, "Diablo III" is a total throwback. Blizzard's devotion to the past is understandable. Millions still play the games it created way back when. A hard left turn would be folly. "Diablo III," like "StarCraft II," stays the course. And the destination is the same as it's always been: 3 a.m., bleary and buzzed with a bag full of loot and an alarm clock looming.

Apart from the detailed visuals, "Diablo III" futzes very little with the formula. And that's a good thing. Players roam overworlds and dungeons, cutting through enemies and looting their still-warm corpses. "Diablo III" is a return to Sanctuary, some 20 years after the characters in "Diablo II" saved the world. But the veterans of the last war against Hell have gone mad from the horrors they've seen. And new blood is needed to pick up the fight. Familiar faces, like Deckard Cain, are set to return. And familiar places, like Tristram, will be revisited.

But more interesting, at least to me, are the moments of deja vu I felt during the demo. Played with friends, the same multiplayer moments arise. Groups split up, players nosing their way toward different corners of the map. One player finds himself outnumbered and the rest come running (sometimes failing) to save the day. Pockets fill to the brim with loot, forcing friends to stop momentarily and trade by chucking useful weapons and whatnot into the dirt.

I'm glad Blizzard didn't cook up new ways to handle these moments, because they're part of what made the original games fun to play with friends. And I'm looking forward to seeing how the new Battle.net accentuates rather than transforms these moments. Being able to hear your friend's voice while playing "Diablo III" certainly isn't something I remember from the '90s -- but it's a touch that I'll find useful. Because who wants to type when you could be clicking and killing?"

Yes, it's yet another voice amidst thousands of opinions... but I'm sure many avid players of the previous games find solace in hearing another fan claiming that the soul of the Diablo series has been well preserved in part 3 after testing it out.

Yeah everybody I've spoke with says it's basically what we saw at BlizzCon, but it's still cool that some more people have now had a chance to play the game as well. Nice that they have the teammate reviving as well. I wish I could've gone to PAX, but it's just too soon after Comic-Con, BlizzCon, etc.

And don't worry about the news being a little late, this is a holiday weekend for many people. Hope you're all having a nice Labor Day / holiday weekend!

Bashiok recently provided some nice details in the Battle.net forums on the subject of binding items (both "bind on equip" and "bind on pickup") to your characters in Diablo 3. Here's what he had to say:

Since some forum members were a bit confused by what he said, Bashiok went on to elaborate in saying that for any items that are BoP (bind on pickup) you would not be surprised that they were. He also added the following:

For all of you who are attending the 2009 Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, Washington this weekend, you're gonna have an extra good time because all attendees will have a chance to play the demo of Diablo 3 there!

Obviously, there's no word on whether we'll see any other new material in the PAX demo, but one can hope. Do you guys think there will be any significant differences with this new demo, or do you think it'll basically be the same as what we saw at BlizzCon 2009?

True, that is the sound of a good DJ, but it's also the sound of we here at Diablofans.com calling out to YOU to help us continue to improve the site! As you saw at BlizzCon 2009, we completely revamped the site with a new design along with some other upgrades, and now we're looking to start populating it with a wealth of Diablo content that you can always come back to. We're already the #1 source for Diablo news and community discussion (well, other than Blizzard themselves ;)), so let's work together and make this site the best resource for all things Diablo!

DoranM has just made a post calling out for volunteers to help us build up our Wiki better than ever before so it's truly a great resource for Diablo players worldwide! We're also looking for users who can help create some fantastic character build guides! Here's a link to his thread:

http://www.diablofans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21549

If you're a fan of the game, and since you're here on Diablofans.com I think it's pretty safe to say you are, please consider lending a hand. There may even be some freebies in store for those of you who go above and beyond the call of duty! (hint, hint)

Thanks all, and as always, if there's anything you'd like to see added to Diablofans in the future, be sure to let us know. Of course, if it's something you can help make happen as well, that's even better!

Bashiok recently responded to a user who had some questions about the Witch Doctor's "Zombie Dog" skill. Here's what he had to say:

The Gargantuan, as you may recall from the BlizzCon panels is basically a much larger version of the zombie dogs. Bashiok also went on to elaborate on the subject of switching between having your zombie dogs on fire and poisoning them:

Alright, you've heard what Bashiok has to say about it, now let's hear your opinions on the Zombie Dog skill.

Hehe great finds Dauroth!

Hrm, didn't notice any posts about it on here... it's in our dev tracker forum obviously though. And yeah, it's definitely a good find

Ok, so not really. But our own Dauroth, a fan in the Battle.net forums, pointed out the man singing "Hotel California" is none other than Ed Trotta, the actor who voiced Tyrael.


I'm now just counting the days until somebody does a video mash-up where we actually see Tyrael performing the song. Make it happen people!

Thought you guys would like to see some more of the sights that we saw while attending Blizzcon this year, so I've just put up a bunch o' photos from the event. You can click on any of the following pics to view a larger version:


There are still more photos to see, so be sure to check out the full online gallery located here:
http://www.diablofans.com/forums/album.php?albumid=47

Be sure to let us know what you think of the pics! Hope you enjoyed them!

Because it's filled with rainbows!!! I'm sure that's what a few of you were thinking in the back of your heads, but that's just not the case. Wired recently conducted a nice interview with Diablo 3 Lead Designer Jay Wilson about violence and gore in Diablo 3. Take a look:It's gotta be nice to work at a place where you can have conversations with your co-workers like, "You want to behead the guy? Go ahead, yes." Pretty interesting read eh? I definitely like that they're going to be emphasizing certain events to make them more exciting by toning down the frequency that they occur. What do you guys think about it?

Also, letting your daughter play Diablo 3 = Dad of the year.

A user on the Battle.net forums recently asked Bashiok why Blizzard introduced the Monk class when they had said no additional old character classes would be returning as playable in Diablo 3. He was, of course, speaking of Diablo Hellfire when he brought this up and here's what Bashiok had to say in response:

Having played the Monk class quite extensively at BlizzCon, I can definitely assure you all that he's something totally new. It's actually painful not being able to play the game again right now. You have no idea how badly I want to destroy some more enemies with skills such as "The Way of 100 Fists". That character is simply too much fun.

I just heard word that a new character class for Diablo 3 has apparently been unveiled: The Monk! Supposedly, it's replacing the Paladin. Still waiting for confirmation from Blizzard on all of this of course. JUST CONFIRMED IT'S OFFICIAL!

I'm still getting set up in the press room here guys, but thought you'd want to know! You heard it here on Diablofans first!

Update: The Monk is playable at BlizzCon!!!! It wasn't at first, but after the announcement, they made the character playable on all the computers in the convention center.

Update #2: The Cinematic Trailer and the Gameplay Trailer for The Monk are up on Youtube. Scroll down and you can check 'em out!


The screenshot came from a Korean-language version of the Diablo 3 site.

Here's the actual Cinematic Trailer for the Monk:


And here's the Gameplay Footage of the Monk:


More news to come soon!

I also picked up my press pass a little while ago and could already hear Ozzy's band rehearsing in Hall D. Sounds good so far!

Hey guys,

I just arrived back at my hotel from Blizzard's 2009 Fansite Summit and thought I'd give you a recap of what went down today (well, what I'm allowed to divulge at least heheh). Hope you're comfortable, cuz this is gonna be a fairly lengthy post.

At 9:30am, myself and all of the other fan site representatives met up in the Anaheim Marriott lobby as we waited to hop on the bus which would take us to Blizzard's headquarters. Bashiok handed out our passes and we were soon on our way.

Once we arrived, we all stood outside for a bit to admire the amazing Warcraft statue created for Blizzard by the Weta Workshop. No matter how many times you see it, you just don't get tired of looking at that thing. (Don't worry, I took plenty of photos which I'll be sharing later on).

Next, we were brought inside for another look at Blizzard's many prestigious awards in their museum sections along with some concept art of their past games. Same stuff we saw last year basically, but still nice to see again. Then we headed into the small theater area for a brief orientation about what we'd be doing today. Also got to see the new Fan Site program logos which they worked up, so it's good to see Blizzard is bringing that whole thing back into focus. Looking forward to proudly displaying the Official Diablo Fan Site logo here on Diablofans in the near future!

Once that was done, Bashiok loaded up the latest Diablo 3 demo (apparently the same build from Gamescon that we've been discussing over the last few days) and we were treated to seeing the new desert areas on the large screen. It really does look fantastic and I absolutely love the particle effects going on as the window blows sand everywhere you travel. No new character classes were shown yet (doh!) so he loaded up the Wizard and started playing a quest where you had to follow the road to Alcarnus. Saw some Sand Wasps get decimated pretty quickly along with a big Lacuni Warrior with translucent blades. There were also some beast carcasses lying around on the ground which could be overturned to reveal some gold and/or potions.

It was nice seeing how effective the Wizard's mirror image spell really worked on distracting the enemies. They would all attack his mirror image, while the real wizard just stood back and picked them off with ease. There's no official answer about whether the mirror image itself could ever do damage to enemies, but it might be possible with certain augmentations. I guess time will tell on that one. He then went on a "Blood money" side quest and was given a wanted poster for somebody who needed to be captured, but he was really just trying to find the entrance to a dungeon, which apparently spawn in random places each time you play.

We saw more of the inventory, which has been improved. Items take up 1 or 2 slots in the inventory and can now be equipped by simply right-clicking on them. They've really improved that system dramatically and I'm looking forward to testing it out when I'm not busy covering the panels.

Anyway, he restored a few desecrated shrines in the desert, and doing so apparently gives you a temporary power-up against your enemies. Saw some more of the Fallen attacking him as well around this time, but then we saw what was easily my favorite enemy. The Dune Dervish. This large creatures flails around wildly at random intervals, and whenever it's actually spinning, anything you shoot at it will be deflected right back towards you.

Another amusing thing was a frightened, crying girl who, when he walked over to her aid, was apparently just luring him into a trap, because a bunch of enemies attacked him. With no sign of the dungeon entrance, he decided to just restart the game and play as a different character class - this time, it was the female Witch Doctor.

Her Zombie Dogs were tearing things up from the get go, and everybody enjoyed the Corpse Spider spell in which a zombie comes out of the ground and vomits up spiders. He then entered the Howling Plateau ares of the desert and soon found The Ruins dungeon entrance. This is where he stopped and told us we'd get to see that dungeon and more for ourselves when we play the demo at BlizzCon.

However, he did show us how the Witch Doctors skill trees were broken up into three category sets basically: Zombie, Spirit and Voodoo. We also heard about some of the other spells for the Witch Doctor such as Mass Confusion, Fetish Army (which many of you will recall from Act 3 in Diablo 2), Gargantuan (which is apparently like a larger version of the Zombie Dog), Parasite (which infects your enemies so they'll fight for you), and some other ones we didn't hear much about such as Grasp of the Dead, Spirit Barrage, Firebomb, Sacrifice, and Horrify.

With the Diablo demo concluded, we were then taken on the franchise tour. Each fansite representative went on a separate tour based on what game their site covered. Naturally, I went on the Diablo one, and we started off with getting to check out the sound booths. Joseph Lawrence (sp), who is the lead on game sounds for Diablo, gave us a quick tour of the foley and voice-over booths, and then brought us into their impressive new mix room. Blizzard can now do all of their mixes in-house instead of doing them in some Hollywood sound stages, so that's definitely nice for 'em. Joseph played the old Diablo 3 cinematic trailer for us on those thundering speakers of his, and wow... it was a hell of a lot nicer sounding than on my laptop speakers. I won't name any names, but I'm pretty sure a few fan site reps soiled themselves hearing that trailer the way it was meant to be heard.

Next we were taken into the Diablo 3 development area and I was amused that pretty much every door still had "Project Hydra" written on it instead of Diablo 3. We saw a few demo pods hooked up where they apparently test the latest elements of the game. Also saw some of their break areas which included some nice arcade cabinets where apparently some heated Street Fighter games take place. Word is that their Lead Animator (Bowie) is currently the king of Street Fighter there. I also couldn't help but nod in approval at the Big Trouble In Little China poster they had on the wall in that room. Blizzard, you guys truly are kindred spirits.

We then walked past the programming and concept art areas and saw a large Diablo statue in the hallway that was lit up. Really cool looking, but obviously, we weren't allow to take any photos in there so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Next we went to their Library, which apparently was still under construction last year so that's why we didn't get to see it then. The library is filled with everything a game developer could want - classic games from yesteryear (both PC and console), coding books, art & design reference books, graphic novels... the works. All of it can be checked out by employees just like you would do with a regular public library card. I loved that they had many classics in there such as Populous and a variety of Sierra's point-n-click adventure games including "Space Quest" and "Police Quest". Bashiok was trying to find a copy of Leisure Suit Larry, but I guess that one is always checked out. Hmm... I wonder why.

Another nice feature of the library is how it's made to look old. The doors at the entrance have old iron handles on them, the bookcases are made to look a bit aged, and there are even flickering faux-lanterns inside. It's just nice to see how much they care about aesthetics, even outside of their games. Really creates a nice welcoming atmosphere for anybody who walks in.

Now that the main part of our tour was done, it was time for lunch with the developers. The three people who were there (in addition to Bashiok) were Dave Adams (Lead Level Designer), Nate Bowden (Environment Artist), and Chris Haga (FX Artist). The way the table was divided up, it was pretty much impossible to hear everything they were all saying, especially since only 1 rep from each site was invited, but I was able to speak with Dave and Nate pretty extensively. They talked with us about their typical days at work, which are apparently anything but typical since they're always working on something different. Some days they'll show team dailies to the other developers so everyone knows who's working on what, other times they're in meetings, and then of course a lot of time is spent on concepting and modeling.

They've also apparently gone on some team building adventures including a sea voyage which they refered to as "Team Diablue". They equated it with the Life Aquatic film since they were all given hats similar to the ones the characters wore. Both Dave and Nate talked about how nice it is working at Blizzard compared to other companies they've worked with because of how the company has a strong-sensitivity to the life-work balance of their employees. If somebody is seen working too late, they're literally told to go home because Blizzard feels that will just harm their productivity the following day... not to mention, they want their employees to have plenty of time to spend with friends and family outside of work.

That doesn't mean employees don't put in their hours, especially during crunch time. But even then, members from other game teams will apparently come and lend a hand to help ease things for the team in crunch mode. You can just tell everybody there is genuinely happy with how they're being treated and that there's a lot of camaraderie amongst the employees.

Nate and Dave also discussed their backgrounds a bit. Nate has a strong background in architecture which he says really helps him with his work as an environment artist. He also worked at Electronic Arts, so I can't say I'm surprised that he's enjoying working at Blizzard based on the horror stories I've heard about working at that place in the past heheh. You'll hear more from Nate in the coming days since he'll be in the Diablo Art Panel.

Dave actually has a degree in film which he also said has helped him as a level designer. He's worked at a variety of game companies and worked on titles including The Neverhood and Skull Monkeys (hooray for Claymation games!!) and later, Metal Arms. When he came to Blizzard, he started working on Starcraft Ghost, which he said they'll still play multiplayer modes of the demo version every now and then. I suggested they include the demo as a bonus for anybody who purchases all the Starcraft 2 games. I wouldn't hold my breath on that one, but it's nice to think about. Hopefully that game won't remain a shelved idea forever as I'm sure many people would at least like to try it. Really makes me wish I could've attended the first BlizzCon... I hear the multiplayer games were a blast. You'll hear more from Dave at the Design Q&A panel in the coming days. He even joked about possibly puking during his panel and how that would be "Diabloish". I then commented that it sounded exactly like something the Witch Doctor would do. In fact, I'm putting this out there right now - I want to see a "Putrid Projectile Puke"(tm) spell for the Witch Doctor in Diablo 3!

From what I gathered, most of the employees seem to like the Witch Doctor character in Diablo 3 the best simply because of all the crazy spells. I guess it appeals to the designers and developers, but they did talk about liking the Wizard as well. Couldn't get them to speak at all about the unknown character classes. Shocking, I know.

Our day at Blizzard's headquarters ended around 3pm back in the small theater, where we watched some Starcraft 2 Beta gameplay between the Protoss and Terrans, but I can't really comment on that as it may be a part of a video that Blizzard will release in the near future. It definitely made me want to play the demo some more at BlizzCon over the next few days... but the same could be said about any new game footage we see, right? Right.

Again, they wanted to remind all of us that they will be updating on Twitter extensively during BlizzCon, so be sure to check that out. And, of course, during the Diablo panels, be sure to stop by here on Diablofans.com because I'll be hosting Live Chats right on the homepage where you can interact with us as the news of each day unfolds, just like last year! Click here to see our Live Chat schedule.

Ok, my fingers are now tired from typing up this virtual novel of a post, and my stomach is growling because I haven't fed it enough. Hope you guys enjoyed this extensive recap of the 2009 Fansite Summit as I did my best to cover all of it (what I was allowed to talk about, at least). I really enjoyed meeting with some of the other fansite members and, of course, more of the Blizzard team. Everybody here is ridiculously nice and I can't wait for more o' BlizzCon in the coming days!

Talk to you guys tomorrow!

-Mockery