DiabloFans

Yeah!! Just got my awesome cow portal shirt!!

I see it : I am hoping this means they will be there with some announcement of another major system.

Am I the only realizing the irony of an opinionated thread about the idea that opinions are worthless. Thus rendering this thread worthless itself.

Although, I disagree with this statement. It's not the opinion that makes it pointless, it all depends on the reasoning for the opinion. However, even this is not the most important. One of the msot opinionated subjects, religion, is usually based little to no reasoning other than a feeling one has.

Opinions are important because they are your opinion. And nothing else should matter more than your own opinion.

Yesterday we were privileged to a "sneak peek" of the new Followers system that will be used in Diablo III. Unfortunately, this leaked video left us with only the basic construct of the system and left room for plenty of speculation. Well, today comes with a slew of interviews from Jay Wilson and Leonard Boyarsky. They go into some detail about just how the system is working and how we will interact with these newly added characters.

First, some nitty gritty about the characters themselves. We learned yesterday that the three Followers are the Enchantress, Scoundrel, and Templar, but just who are these characters? Each one will have their own unique story and personality to add to the game. As you play through the main story arc, you will run across these characters in need of some form of assistance. After helping them through their own journey, they will lend their abilities to you. As they venture with you, you will explore their backstories. They will make note of particular instances or comment on something that is going on. They will help tell the story to the player while they are out fighting demons instead of having to sit and read some books.

Beginning with the Templar, named Kormac, he is a stoic character with righteousness on his side. His order is actually trying to retrieve scrolls and books that Lazarus had taken before the story of Diablo I. Betrayed by a corrupt member, you will find Kormac locked up in a dungeon. After you free him and slay the corrupt order member, the Templar will offer his services of protection to you. Kormac has a varying play style that will be valuable no matter what class you are playing. If you need a tank character, he will be able to fill this role very well. However, if you are already a melee oriented character, the Templar can offer healing and other supportive abilities.

After finding and rescuing Kormac, the next Follower you will run into is Lyndon the Scoundrel. Lyndon is a dark humor type character with a questionable sense of morality. Once belonging to a thieves guild, Lyndon was disgraced and thrown out of the guild. Perhaps motivated for more personal gain, he will join you for opportunities to obtain better riches and items. Lyndon is a sort of throw back to the Diablo I Rogue. His focus will be on ranged attacks with the use of a bow or crossbow. However, if a ranged damage dealer is not something you are interested in, he also has a variety of other skills that are more focused on his Scoundrel title like helping you get more gold.

The last Follower you will run into, about a third of the way into the story, is the Enchantress Eirena. Her story is a bit more shady and will unravel as the story continues. All we know when we meet her is that she is following a Prophet who has the ability to control people. In the midst of a fight, she is trying to protect some people and needs your help to save them. After doing so, she will follow you on your heroic journey. Offering magic-based ranged attacks, Eirena will be able to cast from afar to deal damage. However, thanks to her skills gained from the Prophet, she can also offer you services in helping control your foes for you to kill.

Moving past their stories, we go into the mechanics of how this system will work. First and foremost, it is important to note that the Followers system will only be available to those playing in a game by themselves. If another player joins the game, the Follower will head back to your caravan. However, if you find yourself alone again in this fight, the Follower will come right back to aid you. This was done to help players who want to play by themselves but decrease the clutter if multiple people are in one game. Along with this, despite having all three Followers at your disposal, you may only use the services of one at a time. But do not worry, all three will gain experience regardless if they are being used or not. This will allow you to use them when you want to and not because you have to in order to level them up. You can also switch them out whenever you want to aid you best in different scenarios. If a follower "dies," you will not have to go back to town resurrect them. This is how it was originally planned but Blizzard felt like it took too much time away from fighting and caused players to not even use them. Instead, the characters will be knocked out temporarily. After about 15-20 seconds, they will regain consciousness and rejoin the fight. If this is too much time for you, you can channel on them and help revive them sooner. To help keep them fighting longer, they will also gain the effect from any health globe you pick up.

Each Follower comes with their own unique skill set to choose from. Every five levels up to 20, you will gain access to a new set with three different choices. You can choose one from that set to help cater to your liking. Along with skills, you will be able to customize your Followers with some gear. One amulet and two rings will be able to be equipped by them to help customize their stats to the play style you have planned for them. Along with this is a weapon slot. Each Follower will have a distinct group of weapon choices that they can equip but there will still be some variety. Perhaps a heavy damage dealer is what you want for your Templar, so you give him a two-handed weapon. But if you are looking for a tank, then you can give them a sword and shield. The last item slot, which can be seen in the inventory screenshots, is for a class specific item. The only one we know for sure is the Templar's tomes. Speculation for the other two may be a satchel or quiver for the Scoundrel and perhaps some off-hand orb for the Enchantress. These unique items will only be for each particular Follower. These characters were purposely left with a limit to their customization and stats to help lighten the load of these characters. Blizzard did not want players to feel like they were leveling a second character. Instead, you are able to help design this person who will fight along with you when needed.

Moving on to the last part, the way the Followers function in a game is very important. Their are no direct controls for your Followers. Meaning, you cannot tell them to attack a particular unit or to heal you whenever. Instead, this will all be handled by the advanced AI system that has improved since the previous game. Player control is more based on the skills you give them. An example that was given of the AI is the Enchantress' energy bomb skill. A massive AoE, the Enchantress will use this skill when the player is low on health to help clear out some demons and hopefully get some health orbs. Healing and other support skills will be used similarly to best help your character in the fight. Now, there are a lot of people who are afraid that these Followers can be used to do all the killing for you while you just stand and wait; this will not be the case. This is handled in two ways. First, monster AI is improved. Back in Diablo II, you could just stand back as all of the demons would attack your hireling. Now, monsters will not just target the player closest to them. Certain monsters are programmed to go after the person in the back first while others will go after the biggest threat at the moment. Players will constantly have to be on their toes this time when fighting hordes of enemies. If this is not enough for you, then each Follower can be managed to not steal kills from you and instead just help you kill them more easily. If you do not want to spec you Follower with damage skills, then you can focus on more crowd control skills so you can still do all of the killing, or even choose more passive bonuses like extra magic or gold find. Either way, they have designed these Followers to not be a necessity to the game but will just aid you if you would like. Keep in mind, that they will also still level with you even if they are not being used so if you decide you want to use them later, you will not have to go back to re-level them.

If you would like to read any of the interviews that were conducted, you can check out the links below. You can also check out the official Diablo3 site page.

Interviews:

• GamePlanet
• AUSGamers
• NowGamer
• FZ
• GameStar (it's German, here is a translation)
• IGN
• Diablo3-ESP
• GameInformer

We have all been waiting for the next system to be announced; well, the wait is over. A leak* has just unveiled their Followers system. As talked about earlier, the Followers system is something that Blizzard has been working on since before the unveiling of Diablo III itself. Little information has been shared about how exactly the system will work in comparison to Diablo II. In the previous installment, players were offered four different types of Hirelings, one from each act, while most players chose the infamous Act II mercenary. Each had their own unique fighting style with a choice of three different skills. After hiring one, the player was able to equip a helm, weapon, and body armor on their hireling. There were no more options for customization with these characters as they would then follow you around and fight with you until their untimely demise.

Well, it appears in Diablo III, there will be a bit more customization to these characters. There are three types of Followers; the Enchantress, the Templar, and the Scoundrel. Each comes with their own play style as well skill set for players to choose from. The skill sets will be in tiers just like you character with new skills being unlocked every 5 levels. The player than can choose one skill of that tier to give their Follower. There is also some altered the equipment slots to a weapon, amulet, and two rings. It appears that certain equipment slots and skill choices will unlock as your Follower levels. The character will also show armor value, damage, life and resistances for Cold, Fire, Lightning, Poison, Holy, and Arcane (The Holy and Arcane resistance appear to be interchangeable).

The Enchantress

The Enchantress will be your magic Follower. Able to cast skills from afar, she will pair nicely with a more melee oriented character to blast away enemies from a distance.

Skill choices:

• Tier 1 (Unlocked at lvl 5) - Disorient, Forceful Push, Charm
• Tier 2 (Unlocked at lvl 10) - Decoy, Reflect Missles, Powered Armor
• Tier 3 (Unlocked at lvl 15) - Focus Mind, Amplify Damage, Lower Resistance
• Tier 4 (Unlocked at lvl 20) - Energize, Energy Bomb, Guidance

The Scoundrel

The Scoundrel will be a ranged physical fighter. Wielding a crossbow or bow, the Scoundrel will stay away from the forefront of the fight and pick off enemies from a distance.

Skill Choices:

• Tier 1 - Crippling Shot, Rapid Fire, Poison Bolt
• Tier 2 - Bandage, Dirty Fighting, Scavenge
• Tier 3 - Power Shot, Multishot, Rain of Gold
• Tier 4 - Anatomy, Black Market, Vanish

The Templar

The Templar is your melee Follower. Taking the role of a Paladin like character, he will be in the front of the fight. Pairing him up with a ranged class may be a good idea to help keep your enemies at bay. WE actually saw this character as the Jack of Spades in the Diablo III poker set.

Skill Choices:

• Tier 1 - Charge, Heal, Protection
• Tier 2 - Guardian, Intimidate, Loyalty
• Tier 3 - Intervene, Inspire, Tribute
• Tier 4 - Empathy, Onslaught, Knight

Nothing else is known yet on how the rest of the system will work. However, as soon as some more information is shared, I can guarantee we will have all of the updates.

*Note that this has not been officialized or released by Blizzard yet but the current information is accurate.

EDIT: I was :ninja:'d For Kayla

A jewel in the ruff. A female Diablo player. This means that she can only be very tough on the exterior. However, still not to be confused as one of the guys, she has a very feminine side behind the exterior.

For Dae - A conspiracy nut but in a good way. Always cautious of everything given to him. this caution has left him wise in his decision making abilities. He is also very enthusiastic about anything he really gets into. Finally, a true friend who would sacrifice some of his own happiness if it helped a friend in need.

Mike Morhaime:

nuff said

Yeah, it is not possible for us to host this on the actual site. That is why we are directing everyone over to Force's youtube page. However, I will still be giving up to the minute updates here on the site for those who would like to read about it here.

The May Conference call is now over. While most of the call was not about D3, we did get some important information. Most importantly, the Diablo III external beta testing is expected to begin in Q3 of this year; that is July 1st - September 30th. Also with this, Mike Morhaime said that they are still pushing to get Diablo III out this year. Of course, with Blizzard, no dates are set in stone. If anything goes wrong or extremely well, these dates can change. However, considering this is the most current news about the beta and the time frame given is very soon, it is more than likely we will be seeing beta start in a few months. From there, it all depends on how well beta goes for the release date of the actual game. Along with this news, we learned that they have begun internal testing last week. This means that most if not all systems are in the game and running. Along with this, we have been promised to get information about all remaining systems before beta so expect a lot of Diablo III updates very soon.

We want to thank everyone who came to the site to get these updates and the 3,500 live viewers who listened to the podcast today. You can expect a lot more updates in the next coming months and plenty of beta coverage here at DiabloFans and through Force Strategy Gaming. There will be a recorded version of the live podcast later today for those of you who missed it. In the mean time, you can check out the slideshow presentation they gave, and if you're actually interested, you can take a look at this quarters' numbers. If you weren't able to listen into the live DiabloCast, you can listen to the recorded version now.

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As I am sure most of you know by now, today @ 1:30 PST is the day of the Activision/Blizzard financial conference call. Now, normally there is not a lot of interesting information during these calls for us DIabloFans, however, todays may be the exception. During the last conference call, Mike Morhaime said there would be news regarding the beta during this call.
So, with the promise of at least "news" and hopefully good news, we here at DiabloFans will be doing everything we possibly can to relay this information with you guys. We will be doing this though various avenues.

First, the actual link to the conference call for those of you who want their info direct from the source. Keep in mind, this is a conference call for investors. This is not a conference call for Blizzard or Diablo. Most of the call is business jargon for investors of Activision and Blizzard. Unless you are into that sort of stuff, you probably should avoid the call itself.
http://investor.acti...m?eventid=96008

The second way to get your information from the call is through the Live DiabloCast. Sixen, Force, and ScyberDragon (myself) will be having a live broadcast of the podcast we normally do. We will be discussing Diablo 3 in general, answering questions from you guys (that you can submit on Force's Facebook page), and announcing any Diablo news given during this call.
http://www.youtube.c...s/0/OzJQX1Pt3ZQ

Finally, for those of you who would just like your news right here on DiabloFans, I will be giving up to the minute updates on any news given during the call right here. The Front Page, and more specifically this post, will be used to relay any news we hear during the conference call. You can also check out our IRC to chat with other DiabloFans about any of the news given.
http://www.diablofans.com

Honestly, half of my rep was from when I was making sigs for pretty much everyone on the forums. (back then, you would receive more than one point if someone with high rep gave you rep up to 8 pts).

Hooray for you!

Were-Hamster, I'm guessing. I have a lot of rep, but will not post it because every time I do, I lose rep.

Tsk tsk... You rep spammers! Scourge of the board, darkness of the forum, and festering vile ooze of the internet! Begone with you!

*raises crucifix*

25 rep points... Im not satisfied. GIVE ME REP!@$%@^

sleep sleep sleep. whatever is there is going to stay. get some sleep. and if its not there, the party will be wide awake slaying it...

B sleep

Complete!
Fantasy Tactics Updates.

The images on the "Fantasy Tactics 2" section are from the old update. The next update and official one will come tomrrow.
If you have any problems with the site, just let me know, and I'll fix them up :]
Also the battle field image, I realised there is a section of the image missing, not sure why, but doesn't really matter.
Hope you like it!

I posted this on the Diablo 3 forums as well. Its pretty long but I wanted to share.

I don't visit this forum often but recall numerous times during the Diablo panels that the Blizzard employees read them and take feedback directly from the forums, so I decided to come here and convey my thoughts/suggestions for Diablo 3 and hope some of this finds the way to the developers. I have had the honor of playing the demo version of Diablo 3 at both Blizzcon 2008/2009 and both times I went was purely to play/see Diablo. I have spent countless hours on Diablo 2 and value it as the best game I have ever played. So I will start with a general review and then a few points that I noticed that could be improved. I realize that the game is far from done and there is a lot of work to do, but I hope my suggestions help.

Overall I was satisfied with the overall feel of control over the characters. I played every character 3-4 times over and there was only a few times where it was awkward. The graphics all looked amazing and I really like the way the dungeons/outside area's have a life of their own. The characters are all awesome and I personally enjoy either of the 2 casters over the others.

First the list of things that are awesome:
Checkpoint system - maybe add some sort of path on the minimap on how to get back to where you died.
Spell Graphics
Health Globes
Random Dungeons in the ground - Maybe throw some down the mines and stuff too (act 2). Although those random pillars in the dungeon which were so huge when you where clicking around would send you across the map were pretty annoying. Maybe just have them be destructible terrain and not targetable. (the unstable ones were good though)

Let me continue with items i saw i thought need improvement:
Inventory:

In 2008, we got to use an inventory where every item took up a slot and there was talk of bags being added as extra storage space. I am so used to the inventory from Diablo 2 that it really felt akward to find items in your bag.
In 2009, we got to try a new "tetris style" inventory where everything was 2x1 or 1x1. This felt a little more natural, however, the entire time I was using this inventory, it felt extremely confusing. The reason for this was that every item bigger than a gem was the same size, and fell in different spots in your inventory depending on the items you picked up. I remember one instance with the wizard where I picked up a staff, and then immediatly after picked up a wand. When I wanted to equip that wand with a orb I had also found I had to go through a lengthy process of finding not only the wand by deciphering the text, but also distinguishing the orb from the rest of the items as well. One of the advantages of Diablo 2's inventory was that each item had it's own size, but the downfall was that some items took a lot of room and where over sized.

The red X's over the items have to go. Talk about blocking an already small image with a huge red X. If you cant use it just shade the background red but dont block the graphic.

My suggestion: for this would be to have fewer slots in the inventory, make the items graphics bigger and not so set back into the background of the slot, keep the "tetris style" over the first style, but keep the items to a limit of 1x1 1x2 or 1x3. Fewer slots in the inventory would make picking up unnecessary items irrelevant without the town portals.
Items:
Rare items (gold) dropped WAY too much. I had a complete inventory of rare items in the 15 minutes we were able to play. I understand that, (from one of the panels) you are trying to bridge the gap between rare and unique items by making them in some cases better than/equal to some uniques, but I really dont like that idea. I think unique items should be extremely rare and should be better than the rare items. Especially if the amount of rare items dropped stays the same. I outfitted on of my wizards in a full new set of rare armor/weapons in one of my games. Which means I completely suited up my character with equal level rare items in 15 minutes. I feel that my character shouldn't even have magic items (blue) equipped until later in the game. And definitely not in all rares until the middle/end of nightmare difficulty. Then all uniques until hell difficulty. Again, this is purely based on the amount of drops from the demo and I understand that it might have been toned up a bit. I am hoping and praying that there items as rare/if not more rare than say a Zod rune.

+skill Modifier: I dont remember seeing this on any items and would be really upset if it was taken out. The +skill modifier was the end all best upgrade you could look forward to. Diablo to me is about maxing your characters and not repeatability of content. I recall something about not having to rely on gear to play your character. But why. I understand not having to rely on gear to get through normal difficulty. But you should definitely be reliant on harder difficulty's. (Im tired so this doesn't even stay on topic but is a general gist of so many factors that rely on each other to make Diablo Diablo)

Also, only got to play with the runes a little in the first demo, so that whole paragraph above might be moot.

No mana potions/cooldown on health potions: I have to give this one a BIG thumbs down. If you ever get down to low health and have to kill some monsters for some health globes, but cant because you are out of mana and health potion is on cooldown, you lose time playing your character. Ya having to buy a lot of potions was annoying, but not nearly as annoying as running away knowing there is nothing you could have done about it. This affects the witch doctor and wizard the most since their killing power is reliant on mana. Justifying it with having to spend points in talents is demoralizing and shouldnt be in the game.

"This item is worth 300% more gold to vendors" Please please please please please dont implement this mechanic. If we need 300% more gold from vendors, I'd rather just go pick up another item.


Characters

Cooldowns: *sigh* I think if you design skills around cooldowns, they shouldn't be there in the first place. Limits to how many of a spell can be active yes, cooldowns no. Cooldowns are not a fun mechanic. You add a whole new element to Diablo: Time management which is really not a fun one to keep track of all the time. It also adds to you losing control of some of your characters abilities and thus repeating that you don't have complete control over your character at all times since time itself has taken a part of it.

Passive Skills: I really don't like having to invest my points into passive skills. The different skills you invest to should all do something visually, whether it be add another spell. The passive skills should be applied to affective spells like synergies in Diablo 2. All this says to me is that someone doesn't want to think up new skills for all the characters and wants to fill in the blanks with things that people really don't want to have to spend 5 character levels on to max out.

Wizard
Mirror image: splits you and the mirror image right where the image is cast. This spell would be a lot better if the mirror image was cast and spawned at the point where the mouse is. This gives a lot more control over where the image is, where monsters fire their ranged attacks, and doesn't account for any loss of character control when the split happens.

Explosive Blast? I think it was called, whatever looked like the miniature nuke. Something didn't feel right about this spell, I don't know if it wasn't balanced, or just didn't feel like it was doing anything compared to arcane orb for example. Maybe it was just the graphics against the desert, but as far as light show goes, this spell needs to be upped. It would be really cool if this spell was replaced with a castable ranged fire nova or something of the sort.

Frost Nova Freezing rather than slowing = awesome.

Energy Twister: Again with the lose of control, not of your character but your spell. Not being able to control where the whirlwind's fly is annoying if you just used your entire mana pool to shoot 6 twisters that ALL went around the 5 guys our shooting them at. We already this spell and it called :charged bolt
I don't think we need another.
My Suggestion: Make the whirlwind animation bigger (not much mind you) and have it cast where the mouse it at and not have it move. Have it start with weak damage and gradually get stronger over time that way if you are running away, its pointless to cast it, but if you have a group of enemies and a tank, then it would be great to cast it if the monsters stay put.

Ice Armor: Whats the deal with it wearing off..... timers are really annoying.... my 2 cents.

Disintegrate: Make this fire and light things on fire!!!!!!! Making it bright red and arcane is weird.

Teleport: Just remove this altogether. I understand its for getting out of tough fights, but come on, put something cooler in the last tier and just get rid of this ridiculous spell. We have frost nova and mirror image to get out of tough spots, the last thing in any tier should be a REALLY cool offensive spell.

On another note i'm really interested in seeing how this melee wizard will work since it seems like the only skills for it are in the first couple of tiers and aren't supported by anything later in the tiers. But Im sure that's just a work in progress.

Witch Doctor:
Skull of flame: I don't care what its called, its amazing.

Horrify: Awesome.

Zombie Dogs: Any way we can have more control over these?

Parasite? - Why are there 2 ways to summon zombie dogs. Seems like a waste of a talent since you can just summon the dog after the creature dies anyways.

Haunt - Loss of control, again. Have him just shoot a spirit out from his body and the spirit dive down the mouth of the monster and possess it or something.

Biggest concerns: No high damage single target attack. The fire bomb is great to lob in for some AOE, but the witch doctor has no single target attack as I recall that isn't from summoned items. He is in definite need of something like: Voodoo needles: The witch doctor throws a barrage of needles into a single target for x+x more damage than the fire bomb. This concern is also that the witch doctor relies too much on micromanagement and not actually playability. Defensive skills in last tier = bad.

Barbarian

I don't remember a lot of the skills from the barb or the names, but I do remember the Rage system. I for one am really not a fan. It felt weird, and when you are sitting there smashing things and buttons, you don't want to be looking at 3 little globes in the bottom right of the screen to make sure you have enough to use your next move. I know the mana is the same way, but mana is a sliding scale, whereas the 3 globes are a visual count. Big difference when it comes to function.

It honestly felt like I was just smashing buttons and if he did the move, then cool, and if not then just keeep smashing until he did. Mana has a limit, you know when you are reaching the end of the limit and you need to refocus your attacks. With the rage system you add micromanagement to attacks and add limits past something you can control = not Diablo-esque

The Knock-back attack: Knocking something back and then knocking it to the floor are 2 completely different things, knocking something back and having to wait for it to get up after spending that rage on it was pretty annoying if you ask me.

Cleave was good.

Monk

The Monk was probably one of the best thought out characters. I play casters in most games but enjoyed playing the monk.

Seven sided strike: Loss of character again. Since the monk is holy have him strike and the images of holy just attack while the monk stays where he is. No need to keep taking the characters and making them move. When he charges ahead, have him stop when he hits the first creature and then the seven sided strike go off.

Why doesn't he use the staff if its equipped. Makes no sense, he shouldn't equip staffs if he isn't going to use them and they shouldn't give him extra damage if he isn't using them. I saw some fist weapons in the concept art so I assume it will be changed, but the stat specific staffs should only be there if you plan on making one of his trees a holy caster type.

Better visual for combo points. Actually to tell you the truth, I still don't know how to tell what point of the combo I was in. I didn't even realize that the monk had combos until I heard about it in the developer panel. I played him as soon as I got there and for someone who was just trying to get as much play time in with him as possible, i didnt even really examine the skills much.

The last class: I am not saying I know what it is, but based on my best guess, please dont call it Hunter, Rogue, Assasin, or amazon. Ranger sounds nice ;).

Questions:

Of course I got some questions after blizzcon that I wasn't able to ask at the panels. I know Blizzard has a habit of being hands off with questions. Im sure some of these were answered and I just missed them, but Ill ask anyway. But figure I'd ask a couple non imposing questions.

What is the main focus of development at this point in time? Content, Characters, Story, Multi-player?

Are +skill items planned? Maybe trying to be avoided? ( I think this was answered somewhere, just cant find it again)

Linkable items? Would love to link an item in Diablo 3 to my friend playing SC2 through battle.net.

Are uniques still purple, and planned to still be purple?

Anything like an armory planned?

Quote from "Absolut" »

If Diablo is like the devil wouldn't that make Dialon closer to God? haha

Dialon is Diablo in disguise, you can put two and two together if you read the Sin War books, as what they stand for is opposite of who they actually are.

There are very many gods of Sanctuary, Amazons have 3-4 godesses, Sorceresses have 3 gods, Druids are more in tune with nature and believe in natural spirits, Barbarians regard the Ancients as gods, Priests of Rathma treat Trag' Oul as a god that keeps the world well balanced. The Assassins aren't well known because of how secretive they are, and Paladins are followers of the Zakarum. Witch Doctor believes in voodoo gods and if you read some of their history, they had tribal battles to capture sacrifice victims. Wizards I am not sure about. Monks have their 1001 gods, though I wanna ask one to name all 1001 and see how far he gets. There is the Triune and The Cathedral of Light led by the Prime Evils (in disguise to the general public, as the much high ranking priests know who the Triune really is) and Inarius respectively. There are yet many other small much less known religions also.