• Diablo IV Announced - Cinematic Trailer

    Diablo 4 Officially Announced!

     

    While we've had plenty of leaks and lots of rumors, the day has finally arrived for the official reveal! Just minutes ago in the BlizzCon 2019 Opening Ceremony, Diablo IV was announced to the world through the cinematic trailer "By Three They Come"!

     

     

    DiabloFan's writers are on the show floor at this moment and will have more coverage for us soon, stay tuned!

  • Diablo at BlizzCon 2017

    Diablo at BlizzCon 2017

    The official Diablo blog has been updated with information on BlizzCon 2017.

     

    Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Blog)

    A cold wind blows through Southern California, and soon it will bring all things Blizzard to the Anaheim Convention Center. Diablo is no exception, and whether you’ll be roaming the convention beside us or tuning in at home, we’ve got some treats in store for our beloved nephalem!

    For Attendees

    While it might not be a “big” year for Diablo this BlizzCon, we’re still excited to see our fellow players and celebrate all things Sanctuary with you!

     

    Heading to the con? You might have noticed we’re setting up a small demo area this year right at the front of the main floor! Swing by and try out our convention-exclusive Diablo III experience! Something strange stirs just inside the gates of New Tristram. . . . Choose your favorite nephalem hero and find out what lies in store in this unique, one-off adventure!

     

    Diablo at BlizzCon

     

    Via Virtual Ticket

    Pick up a Virtual Ticket and get a front-row seat to our exclusive Diablo content, including our two live Diablo panels! All viewers will additionally have access to a couple of unique BlizzCon pre-show videos, including our 2017 Year in Review and Necromancer cosplay content.

     

    Diablo at BlizzCon 

     

    Diablo BlizzCon

     

    This year, we’ll be diving into the specifics behind the VFX of the Necromancer live on stage! Join our developers on the Heroic stage on Friday, November 3 at 2:45 p.m. PT to learn more about the dark magic of visual effects needed to bring the necromancer, mastery of the dead, and curses to un-life and even see some of the techniques we use in action.

     

    On Saturday, November 4 at 2:45 P.M., join Community Manager Brandy Camel as she chats with a few of your favorite community members—C.J. ‘Rhykker’ Miozzi, Lynxaria, Stephen ‘Leviathan’ Stewart, and Anthony ‘BigDaddyDen’ Evans—about their experiences in Sanctuary, as well as what it’s like to create content for the Diablo III community. 

     

    Don’t forget about the Murkromancer! This necrotic and aquatic fellow will excitedly follow you through your adventures in Sanctuary, gathering your gold and mrrglglgrling all the way!

     

    Diablo at BlizzCon

     

    BlizzCon is a celebration of our players as well as our games. We wouldn’t be where we are without you, our community, and we hope you’ll celebrate another great year with us. The future has a lot to hold for the world of Sanctuary, but in the meantime, drop by and hang out with us at BlizzCon!

  • Blizzcon 2011 Wallpaper

    Blizzard has just released a new wallpaper on their Blizzcon site.

    Official Blizzard Quote:



    BlizzCon: It's Wallpaper Tuesday! This time around we have the official #BlizzCon 2011 art piece for your decorative desires

    The wallpaper highlights Diablo, the Lord of Terror, in his (her) newest incarnation for Diablo III. While we have only seen a few glimpse of the full figure of the demon, this wallpaper gives us a good and clear look at the form of his entire body. Just why he has such a slender build and what the mouths on his shoulders are is still up to speculation, we can only hope that the truth will be revealed Soon™. If you would like to get the wallpaper to adorn your own computer, you can head here to download it in a variety of resolutions.



    You can also check out the rest of our Blizzcon coverage here.

  • GameFront.com Interview with Julian Love

    (Source) The rest of an interview we saw last week has recently been posted on GameFront.com, and the topics are all very near to our hearts. Lead Technical Artist Julian Love, who has been working on the game for some years, had a nice little chat with CJ Miozzi, and while much of the interview is sadly nothing new, there's still a few nuggets that make it worth reading.

    I've included the more interesting bits here. To read the full interview, which we highly encourage you to do, please see the article here. But beware: This may contain some content that some view as spoilers. To read more on the modding portion of this interview, check out our full modding article here.


    Official Blizzard Quote:



    GF: Was there ever a point in the development process when D3 would have been an MMO?

    No, I don’t think there was ever a serious point. At the earlier stages, there were certainly many ideas being tossed around. There were many people at that point who where bitten by the MMO bug, but there was also people who thought, “hey, we should make a fighting game, or an adventure game.” So I think there were some phases when we weren’t serious and entertained a lot of ideas, but they were during that early stage when we just wanted to throw a lot of spaghetti at the wall and see what stuck. Even then, with the tools we were using, it looked more like a Diablo game than anything else.

    GF: Has development started on any expansions?

    No. We’re really focused on getting the game out the door, which is what we’ve been focused on for the last two years. We want it to be awesome; we want it to be the definitive successor to the Diablo series.

    GF: While there will be no official mod tools for Diablo 3, does Blizzard condone D3 mods? (Covered here)

    There’s no direct intent to say that we don’t want D3 to be moddable. And, to be honest with you, the technology itself, on just a fundamental level, makes this the most moddable version of Diablo there’s ever been.

    However, we have these other goals that supersede modding; we want to provide a safe and secure experience for players to play in and trade items in, and in order to do that, we had to make the game online play only. Once we made that decision, that effectively eliminated the possibility of having moddable games, since you’re going to have to connect to our service in order to play. So that’s a slight consequence of our online-only decision.

    I’ll say that there’s never really been an intention with past Diablo games to make them moddable, either; it’s just that people found a way to make it happen. It’s not necessarily something we went out of our way to support.

    GF: Hacked private servers were created for World of Warcraft; odds are there will eventually be a modded server or a way to play Diablo 3 without b.net, at which point people will be able to make mods. Would blizzard support such actions?

    I think people will have a very difficult time doing that. I don’t think we’d be in a position where we can support that sort of endeavor, because it really falls outside of our development focus, which really is to provide this secure and high-quality experience that really demands an online-only game experience.


    Cover of BlizzCon 2011's Program
    GF: Will D3 compete with League of Legends, DOTA 2, and other MOBA titles in the eSports scene?

    Absolutely not. There is no intention to make D3 into an eSport, and we are actively making design decisions to prevent it as being perceived as or even accidentally falling into the area of eSports. It’s something we’re very aware of. The intention is to recognize that players want to beat the crap out of each other, and to find a better way for them to do so than what D2 offered.

    PvP of the past wasn’t so much a feature as it was an afterthought, or at least that’s the way it felt. So the way people tended to beat each other up was by socially engineering them into a situation in which they could quickly die. And that wasn’t very fun.

    So by creating its own space for PvP, we could keep the element of fun, but do it in a place where it’s fair.

    GF: Diablo is being depicted in a drastically different art style than in D2; less hulking, more slender. Care to comment?

    We had a lot of talk early on about how we should bring Diablo back, what we should aim for in the art style perspective. A lot of monsters are re-treated when brought back from game to game. One of the discussions centered around him being the Lord of Terror, and whether we needed him to be massive in order to equate terror. In the end, the feeling was that wasn’t necessarily the way to convey terror. That’s when we started exploring lots of different takes on Diablo, dozens and dozens and dozens of different concepts, including one where he was half-snake…

    GF: You’ve been using the pronoun “he.” Is Diablo definitely male?

    You know, demons don’t really have a gender.

    So, there you have it. Do you think Julian Love's view of dueling's role in Diablo II, and the Diablo franchise, is accurate with your play experiences in previous games? Should attention focus on more "hardcore" PvP aspects, like making Diablo III a viable competitor in the growing eSports community? Does it makes sense for the Lord of Terror to be hyped-up on estrogen?

  • BlizzCon Question Resurfaces, Sees Internal Consideration

    (Source) The Diablo III Open Q&A panel at this year's BlizzCon was a steady flow of Diablo feedback and query, but not everyone walked away completely satisfied with team responses. A fan recently brought up a clearer and more in-depth version of his Wizard petition hastily sputtered at the panel stage just last weekend, but with better results:

    We encourage you to read the full post here. For simplicity and brevity, much of the technical post was stripped from the following quotation.

    Regarding the DiabloWiki.com - Wizard Wizard and certain gameplay mechanics that interact with weapon speed, self-proclaimed BlizzCon Question Asker Guy asked, "Given the math and change to weapon speeds affecting cast speed, is there anything you were doing to make faster weapons have more incentive to using them [...] [b]is this an intentional design, and slower weapons of equal DPS are just always better[/b] [...], or is this still something that you're looking into and need to work on?"

    Bashiok's response on Technical Designer Wyatt Cheng's behalf is a book in itself, but here's the highlights. I tried to bold the parts that are particularly important and remove the somewhat less helpful (though no less interesting) bits:


    Official Blizzard Quote:




    [...]Your build absolutely matters. Some builds may be well designed to favor 2-handers, and some may favor 1-handers. So, the general statement of "the correct weapon depends on your build" overrides everything else I write.

    Additionally, two general rules of Diablo weapon speeds still apply: spilled damage matters, and speed matters for combat effectiveness. [...] When a monster has only 150 health, who really cares that you hit it for 300 damage instead of 200 damage?[/b] Either way it's dead. And if it's dead with a faster weapon, that means you can get to the next monster faster. [b]This means that a weapon with a 1.3-second speed that can one-shot enemies actually has a 30% killing throughput increase over a weapon with a 1.0 speed.[/b]

    [...]For those who are insistent on maximizing theoretical DPS and AP usage, we've decided to cover you, anyways.

    First, all things being equal, 2-handers do more damage than 1-handers. This is pretty obvious, but I want to confirm and validate this. The reason it's important to call this out is that all the calculations assume "for any 2 items of the same DPS". [b]But that's not a great starting point, because for any two comparable items at any given level, 2-handers do at least 15% more damage than 1-handers, and in many cases 20-25% more. [/b]

    To put it another way, many of the posts in the linked thread make an assumption that two weapons have equal DPS. This assumption is flawed. What you really want to ask is, "for the theoretically best 2-hander in the entire world (even though I'll never get one)" vs. "the theoretically best 1-hander in the entire world (even though I'll never get one)."

    However, [b]what you choose to put in your off-hand, should you choose to wield one, matters.[/b]

    [b]First, no matter WHAT you use, you are getting a bunch of extra stats.[/b] In addition to DPS from Attack and Precision, you're getting whatever other item stats are on your offhand. So you're trading off a theoretical Arcane power efficiency boost for the stats of an offhand.

    [b]Furthermore, if you use a shield, you're getting a big armor boost.[/b] If you haven't played Diablo in a while, people easily forget, but a lot of Sorceress players used a shield in Diablo II. For some players there is a "fantasy" of "I don't need a shield 'cause I don't plan on getting hit." The reality is that we don't let you get away with that in Diablo. You get hit. We don't have heal, tank and DPS roles in Diablo, so everybody in Diablo eventually takes damage.

    [b]Additionally, if you choose to use an orb, every Wizard DiabloWiki.com - Orb Orb (and DiabloWiki.com - Witch Doctor Witch Doctor DiabloWiki.com - Mojo Mojo) comes with +damage on it.[/b] So, if your mainhand does 8-10 damage at 1.4-second speed, and your orb adds 3-4 damage, then that means you're doing 11-14 damage at 1.4 speed. [b]In many cases, the orb plus the stats on the orb completely closes the 15-25% DPS gap between 2-handers and 1-handers.[/b]

    Add on top of that +dmg from your rings and amulets, and currently with internal tuning numbers (this may not be how we ship), but 1-handers and offhand out-DPS 2-handers almost all of the time. [b]It takes a luckily-rolled 2-hander to out-DPS most 1-hand and offhand setups if you can also spare some +damage on your rings and amulets.[/b]

    [b]Finally, fast weapons are better at fishing for procs.[/b] Diablo has lots of very cool proc effects. Chance to gain Arcane Power on critical hit. Chance to summon a fetish on spell cast passive on the Witch Doctor. Faster and more frequent casts means more opportunities to fish for procs.

    If you procured a case of TLDR Syndrome while reading over that abbreviated version of a very elaborate response, Wyatt's argument basically came down to this:


    Official Blizzard Quote:



    [b]Currently, for internal testing of Inferno mode, the 1-hander and Wizard Orb combination is overwhelmingly better.[/b] You get more damage, better mobility, more stats, and more proc fishing. [b]2-handers get you better Arcane Power efficiency.[/b] If anything, I'm worried that 2-handers are too weak. The most likely solution on this front is to reduce the amount of +damage found on rings and amulets to reel in the damage advantage of 1H+Orb. However, the value of Arcane Power efficiency varies the more you have to run and move. If you're running and moving constantly, then AP efficiency lets you drop big bombs like DiabloWiki.com - Meteor Meteor and DiabloWiki.com - Hydra Hydra when you finally get to stand still. Since the amount of running and moving varies from situation to situation, I'm actually fairly happy with where things are.

    Additionally, to balance the exceptions to the rule that Wyatt so thoroughly attempted to explain, there is also incentive to adjust DiabloWiki.com - Disintegrate Disintegrate and DiabloWiki.com - Arcane Torrent Arcane Torrent AP consumption rates in ratio with the other Wizard skills, although Wyatt confessed that this inconsistency may not be "cool" when considering uniformity across the Wizard spells. This may translate into "breaking the rules" with other current iterations of skills in regards to AP-burning, since we were reminded at the beginning of Wyatt's response that nothing is set in stone.

    Do you think that more tweaking is needed to reward players that choose fast weapons, or is Wyatt's response reasonable and accurate with your knowledge of current gameplay mechanics? Will augmentative gear like jewelry, as well as logical considerations like movement limitations, offset the choice between weapon types faced by said players?

    *Note: Posted this from my phone. Forgive any glaring mistakes :P

  • Diablo III Making Of "Black SoulStone"

    Click to see The Black Soulstone Cinematic

    All too often the cinematic side of games are overlooked by the majority of players. In many cases, especially in todays day and age, more effort is placed into these short hyper-detailed cinematographs than any scene of similar length from most full length movies. An exceptionally executed short clip often suffers due to its length. Being so short, it can be easily overlooked, or skipped without much second thought.

    What I'd like to help get across in this article is how much collaboration and skill it takes to create a truly fantastic cinematic. To fabricate such a believable, and detailed world through a computer takes an insane amount of time and precision. It could take thousands of man hours to create a three minute clip as seen in The Black Soulstone. I'll do my best to convoy the process as talked about at this panel. Also for the sake of not turning this article into a picture book, I'm going to link relative picture to text, so click the links to check out the pics.

    Before the presentation had even really begun, we found out that The Black Soulstone clip (which is not the full clip due to spoilers) is only 3 out of 27 minutes of cinematic cutscenes that will be in Diablo III. I don't know about you guys, but 27 minutes of cutscenes like this is in itself enough for me to get a bag of popcorn and watch one by one.


    The most important part of a cinematic is how well it tells a story. This process starts off as storyboards, a collective effort from the team to sketch out in minimal detail scenes they want to link together forming the cinematic. A directer and their crew sits down and forms the storyboard, with close collaboration of the relative crews that will help work on it. This process covers the entire production from start to finish. Be it visual, musical, or character progression; everything has to be planned in the storyboard.

    An example given was how Leah is afraid of Azmodan. How she expresses this fear has to be planned in the storyboard. This one small choice can make a huge impact on Leahs' character progression. If she screams and freaks out, this says something completely different about her than if she just flinches and shies away. Camera angles and focal points also help convoy character emotion. Again, this is where it all begins.



    Color Scripting

    Color has a huge effect on how a scene is perceived, this fact is supported by mentioning there is an entire crew devoted to just color scripting. Diablo with all of its earthy hues is particularly sensitive to this color directing. It is so important in fact that the color translation from early rendering to final production is very often spot on the same.





    The development of a character in Diablo III pivots around three main concepts, game relevance, suiting to the story, and available technology. Azmodan has gone through many iterations, from a mix of Angel and Demon, through a kind of warrior look, and finally to the crab/sumo wrestler you see today. This final concept was chosen because it represents all of the seven sins in which Azmodan, the Lord Of Sin encompasses. For example the shape of his body suggests gluttony and greed, while his body decorations suggest pride and vanity.

    After a characters concept is complete, it must be brought to life. Through a massive effort from many teams, a character is modeled in 3D, textured & colored, rigged for ease of animation, animated, and tweaked for who knows how long before finally making the directors standard. To state that this is an over-simplification is a understatement.

    At this level of professionalism, not everything takes as long as you may think though. For example most of the demon horde you seen in the cinematic was conceptualized and preliminarily modeled in just two days. Life is in the details though, and these details are what take the most time to perfect in these creature models. After initial modeling, the item is passed onto the next team which specializes in texturing. Using the initial 2D concept art, the texture team works on translating that 2D texture into 3D, and accurately spreading it around the creature. They aim to perfectly match the 2D concept, since that is indeed where the director chose to finalize the creature.



    Particle Effects

    Beyond the character models themselves, there are tons of surrounding particle effects that add just as much "character" to the character as the traditional traits like skin, voice, and attitude do. For example, the smokey effect from the Lich Kings eyes adds a lot of supernatural meaning to him. Another example is the smoke rolling off the demons in the Black Soulstone cinematic. These effects have to be subtle, for if they draw too much attention to themselves it distracts the viewer from much more important things happening on screen.



    Reference From Real Life

    When you're aiming to make something believable, what better way than to study related things in real life? This is exactly what the cinematic teams do throughout their work. This is done through setting up target textures, lighting effects, skin tones/textures, etc and photographing them in real life. Then after capturing their target images, the team recreates them over the computer. This is painstakingly done brush stroke by brush stroke using various software.



    The results of this can be truly amazing
    Leah

    As with perfecting textures and lighting effects, to perfect a believable rendered human first you must study one. To drive the development of Leah, the teams studied how things appear in real life when under similar conditions to what they wanted to reproduce in the cinematic. In general they setup a photographic environment like the one at the beginning of the cinematic, complete with a stone, a girl (their producer), candles, and great lighting. The photograph was then manipulated to closer match what the director wanted to see as the final result in the cinematic.

    Continuing with their study, they took close-up shots of various eyes and facial expressions to better understand how to accurately reproduce a face, which is arguably the hardest thing to do when speaking of realistic art. In Blizzard fashion, they went so much further than just simple photos. They setup a specialized camera rig to capture light exposure, color saturation, and texture mapping of various faces, which they can directly use while creating the character model. From early rendering to near completion takes hundreds and hundreds of tweaks to everything from lighting, to textures, shaders, and many other factors even with the assistance of real life examples.



    Facial Animation

    As with lighting and texturing, the animation team began their study via photographing relative real life objects. They first took hundreds of photos of different facial expressions to identify how the different facial muscles moved during each expression. Their goal in this was to replicate every muscle in the face into their character model so they would be able to perfectly reproduce different emotions through the character, they reached this goal, and the results speak for themselves.

    They did the same thing for eye expressions. When observed closely, the human eyes and eyelids have tiny micro twitches, which we don't even notice until they're not there. When viewing older character models up close in cinematics, something looks off. You can't always place your finger on it, but something tips your brain off that this isn't real, and that negatively effects how that character conveys emotions. It's through these tiny movements that the character comes to life, and suddenly all of their emotions become so much more believable. This can be seen as Leah falls asleep into her dream during the cinematic.

    This trend of study also made its way into hand and writing observations. Little things like how a pen indents the paper as you write, or how certain small muscles contract during tiny movements. Through the close collaboration of the animation, rigging, and modeling teams they eventually achieved their goals of a believable character, interacting with a believable world.



    Dynamic Systems

    Features of a character which constantly change drastically are known as Dynamic Systems. Take hair, and clothes for example. With their success in real life studies, similar simulation techniques were used to perfect hair animation. They tracked down a coworker with similar hair to Leah, found a fan, and went to work replicating movements Leah had to do in the cinematic, with the added effect of wind.

    After they had all the info and observations they needed, they moved onto modeling, and animation. Hair poses a problem in that there are hundreds of thousands of strands of air, which are near impossible to compute or individually animate. So instead of dealing with each strand one by one, they start off with very large chunks, maybe five in total. Then they'll break those chunks up to say 200. Those smaller number of strands are what actually move individually. On top of those large strands they add in hair models and effects in order to make it look like there are hundreds of thousands of strands moving.






    Another thing the Dynamic Systems Team covers are rigs. Essentially rigs are basic models of the character that are broken down into separate parts and placed on different pivot points to enable the animation team to make the characters move. Think of a rig like an action figure. This process in itself is precision work, since if a model isn't rigged correctly, it will be impossible to creature realistic movements in the end character.

    What's interesting is that the movements don't always have to make perfect sense, as long as you're not looking at the entire model. In the scene to the bottom left Azmodan is completely hunched over, which looks reasonable from that camera angle. Now if you zoom out and look at the entire rig to the bottom center, you now see he is actually broken, which says that his movement was impossible speaking realistically.






    To make those believable movements, first the team had to observe similar creatures in real life. Sad fact though, nothing on Earth is exactly like Azmodan. So instead, they choice to observe crabs for lower body movements, and sumo wrestlers for his upper body movements. Through excellent creativity they managed to merge these two and were left with a very believable rig.



    Azmodan Speaks

    Their next production challenge was to get Azmodan to believably speak without any lips. In order to produce sounds such as "P" and "B" you need to have a way to block air flow for a second. It just so happens Azmodan has no lips, so instead they used very pronounced movements of his mandibles and tongue to create relative actions to syllables. The end result comes across great, and adds to his creepy factor during the close-up shots.



    The Hordes Of Hell

    During the end of the cinematic there are tons of creatures marching around, each seemingly doing their own things. In order to populate the entire screen with great looking creature animations, they needed to use some smoke and mirrors. The creatures in the far back are using very simple animations, which don't have those little detailed movements we see in more important close-up shots. The more important, and unique animations are called "Hero Animations". As the link shows, this classification of animation is not bound to living creatures. Another trick they used in order to create the illusion of every creature having uniqueness, is to individually tweak how they hold their weapons. By tweaking this they create a great silhouette across the entire army, where no two spears are tilted in the exact same direction.



    The Right Stuff

    Not everything makes it into the final cut, in fact most of the original concepts don't. On of these that they talked about was Azmodans lava drool. They tested all different kind of viscosities until they found one that worked, they added lighting and texture, and even went as far as you add it on the finial model. Even through all this, the end result didn't come across right. They felt it made Azmo feel sloppy, and even comical, two things that are not part of Azmodans characteristics; so they cut it completely. Some effects that did make the final cut for Azmodan include awesome things like active lighting effects from his mouth and eyes along side a heat distortion filter.



    Lighting Effects

    Lighting effects can make or break everything in a cinematic. During the panel Blizzard mentioned how they adopted the same cutting edge effects major motion picture companies are using. These effects make for great lighting across the entire world, but in particular, faces. No one looks good under a harsh light, it blows out every little detail to an undesirable degree. Through combining the crisp detail of a hard light, and the blended effects of a soft light, they achieved a great shot which looks both crisp and delicate.







    A character has many different light sources effecting them at once. The example they showed was of Leah, which is under five completely different light sources when she faces Azmodan in her dream. When combining all of these, they can go back and tweak each one until they are happy with the result. The second type of lighting passes they spoke about are called render elements. These are essentially just the various layers of each shot. Each other these layers have their own effects which add to the shot, but don't effect one another directly.



    Bringing Down The Walls

    Moving onto the scene where Azmodan brings down the rock wall, revealing his plan to evade Sanctuary, how this was achieved is pretty amazing. Aside from all the lighting effects which had to be changed as the wall comes down, how they broke the wall itself is pretty interesting. They used a shaping technique called Voronoi. Essentially, they place random dots across a plane, draw lines equal distances from these dots, then uses the lines to create organic shapes which look very natural.







    It is also worth mentioning that the falling rocks didn't go through any type of physics simulator. The director had a very specific visual in mind, and so every single one of the 40,000+ rocks you see were animated individually as the fell and interacted with each other.


    Well that about wraps it up, I hope you enjoyed our journey through the making of the Black Soulstone Cinematic, and learned a little bit about the absurd amount of effort that goes into creating these windows into Sanctuary.

    For the full experience be sure to watch the panel!
    Special thanks to Verity for uploading it.


    If you missed any of our other Blizzcon coverages, by sure to check out the Blizzcon Hub, and catch up on what happened regarding Diablo III.

  • Diablo III Open Q&A

    After the massive lore panel, it was time to get some feedback from the diehard fans that managed to pilgrimage to this year's convention. Here are the highlights from the Open Q&A; just keep in mind that this isn't meant to be a transcript, so all of it is paraphrased.

    Caution: The following may contain spoilers.


    Q: You made the followers more powerful for end game content. Will they be viable all the way through Inferno?

    Blizzard representatives responded positively, saying that companions will be able to fight adequately alongside heroes through each difficulty. They have done some testing with companions through the difficulties, and although this is a very recent change, they do believe that changes they have incorporated into the hirelings will make then viable in the endgame.

    Q: Is Diablo a girl?

    The cover art for the event booklet made Diablo look anything but the usual muscular, bulky monster we've seen in his more animal incarnations in the previous games. While nothing was confirmed on why Diablo looked so distinctly female, with the sleekness of the abdomen and the wide hips, they did acknowledge that it was done. So it was on purpose. Maybe there's something to the popular Leah-possession lore speculation prevalent in our lore discussion forum.

    Q: Can you elaborate on hardcore mode and how it's different from the previous games?

    They mostly confirmed what is already known about Diablo III's hardcore mode: it will have its own Auction House that does not interact with normal, softcore players, said Auction House will use only gold as a currency (not real money), and so on. However, it was mentioned that if a player is killed, other players will not be able to pick the gear from the fallen character. In Diablo II, players were able to set their hardcore characters to "lootable" to other, trusted party members in the event of an untimely death. Unless misspoken, this is a marked change from the previous games. When you die, your gear is gone. Period.

    Q: Can fresh sixty players succeed in Inferno, and will Inferno ever be nerfed for newer players?

    In step with sentiments spoken yesterday about the difficulty of Inferno mode at the tail end of the Gameplay and Auction House panel the other day, it was confirmed that newly max-leveled characters (sixty is Diablo III's cap) will not be able to succeed easily, if at all, in Inferno mode. It's meant to be a challenge in every sense of the word, no matter what level characters are at.

    While they were vehement about not nerfing it for the newbie's sake, they did add a caveat: as they address hardcore, there may be some balancing to account for hardcore players in Inferno mode. But they will not be simplifying Inferno mode for casual players.

    Q: Why is light radius not in the game?

    Light radius is not entirely gone, and it still works well in some contexts, like deep dungeons, but they found that using the new 3D engine really looked lack-luster when limiting light sources to only that of the player. They really want to utilize different light points to add interest to the 3D environment, so it's no longer a major element throughout the game.

    Q: What's being done to protect against botting?

    Probably a topic near and dear to any players getting ready to compete in Diablo II's upcoming ladder reset, botting has always been a controversial and annoying issue. Bots served as everything from farmers to level grinders, making the ladder ranking system essentially a hopeless, pointless list of bots outstripping human players. It was argued that the actual gameplay of the game renders botting more difficult to achieve, but that they will be policing it well, likely actively and with more robust security measures. It is also important to them to address spam bots, likely by watching join/leave events.

    Q: Will WASD control be available?

    While it had been played around with, they ultimately felt that non-analog controls didn't work well with Diablo's very analog-focused gameplay.

    Q: Will runewords ever be added to the newest game?

    They stated that the new gameplay mechanics and customization options account for what was previously done with runewords. The new, more robust crafting system allows for vast player-generated gear, runestones allow for heavy skill customization, and any other number of mechanics compensate or surpass what was accomplished with runewords in Diablo II.

    Q: Can you confirm a console version?

    They did not want to officially confirm a console version because they want to be completely sure it's something that will work and work well. They have been hiring console developers to work internally on console ideas, and they feel that it plays very well with the kind of game Diablo is, but they don't want to announce anything until they're entirely sure everything will work out.

    Of primary concern is not wanting to compromise the PC version, likely in playability or release (as stated any number of times over the last months.) For now, they're focusing on filling out a console team.

    Q: Attuned runes essentially allow for a ton of specialized runes for each character skill, creating a huge inventory problem with storage. What's being done to address this?

    They acknowledged that they are aware of the issue and are thinking of ways to fix it. They believe that attuned runes add an interesting new facet to skill selection, customization, and build commitment, so they don't foresee removing them, but there is definitely an inventory issue that needs to be addressed.

    Q: What are some of the issues seen in developing a console version?

    Targetting skills becomes more difficult when using a controller and not a mouse and keyboard although they feel that player movement is greatly improved. Monster AI seems somewhat different when interacting with the game in a new way. They found that they spend the most time working with controls with a console iteration. They don't want a potential console version to feel like a port of the PC version, but a quality version that plays well as it is.

    Q: Can we get more beta keys?

    They have more waves coming out after the BlizzCon and are very happy with the feedback that they've received so far. In addition to more beta access sweeping across Battle.net accounts, they also said that a major patch is coming for the beta version of Diablo III very soon. We can guess that this will likely include the skill updates and other changes seen in the beta iteration seen in the PvM demo here at BlizzCon.

    Q: What comes after Inferno?

    While the team feels that Inferno mode will pose huge challenges for players for a long time to come, they have said that they will add more endgame content should they find that players demand more. There's also secret content, which they have confirmed to be in the game, so perhaps we'll see content similar to the Cow Level for endgame enjoyment. At the moment, they are more focused on just getting the game as-is out to the public.

    Q: With the Wizard's cast rate announced as being based on weapon speed, what is being done to reward opting for other items besides cast rate-oriented equipment?

    They believe that choosing cast rate-centric gear versus more obscure equipment is entirely based on the build a player opts for. If a player decides to use skills that benefit more from faster cast rates, it will be logical to use weapons that allow for faster cast rates, while skills which do not focus on cast rates, like Meteor, will allow players to focus on more damage-centric weapons.

    Q: Will there be more skill slots?

    The team believes that allowing more skill slots removes choices and, by extension, build diversity across a playerbase, so they will not be adding more skill slots.

    Q: How will RMAH PvP players be matched with PvP players that do not spend real money on the Auction House for gear?

    Buying higher gear will cause a player to be matched with peers of a like power level through the hidden ranking system, so purchasing gear with real money will only cause players to be matched against more experienced or more powerful characters. The actual outcomes of PvP games will not be affected.

    Q: Will there be more PvP modes besides arena mode?
    The developers found that PvP in Diablo II mostly split players up for fear of getting ganked, meaning more players were playing in private games than playing together in public ones. This led to a focus on on a dedicated PvP mode with dedicated PvP support, the arena, and a PvP progression system. However, more PvP modes are being considered, and Jay Wilson even said that they are looking into a dueling option similar to Diablo II, although nothing concrete is yet known and they aren't sure if such a mode will make the initial release.

    Q: Will there be guild support?

    Guilds and clans in Diablo II were often organized using chat bots and out-of-game online communities. Hope had arisen that this would mean the developers saw this need as enough to implement guild support in Diablo III, but the idea was shot down. They will not have guild functionality available for release, but something may be implemented after release. They saw a lot of guild ideas that didn't get implemented in Diablo II as great mechanics that they want to work on in the future, but they want to make sure that if they do implement guild functionality, they will do it right.

    Q: Will boss AI be scaled with difficulty to allow for more interesting and less repetitive battles at different difficulty levels??

    They're looking across the major bosses for the game and tuning their AI to be refreshing and challenging according to difficulty mode, but they aren't sure if the changes will be really drastic from difficulty to difficulty or only minor, although they want such differences to be big. It seems to be another question of what will make it into the initial release.

    Q: Will players be able to use their skills together in combination attacks?

    They have seen many players using strategic implementation of skills, like a Wizard freezing enemies and then melee characters shattering frozen enemies. They think that more sophisticated team play would be fantastic, but they don't want payers choosing not to play with other players because of class choices in certain situations, which they view as adverse to encouraging group play.

    Q: Will there be an API for the Auction House?

    They have talked about it at length, but it will not make the launch version of the game. It may be added after release. They seemed positive about such an implementation.

    Q: With the 12-month account for WoW players allowing a free digital purchase of Diablo III, will there be any compensation for purchasing a collector's edition of Diablo III?

    Buying a collector's edition of Diablo III will count as credit towards a 12-month account.

    Those were most of the more interesting questions asked, but we encourage you to stay tuned as we upload video versions of each of the panels and keep your eyes peeled for full transcriptions. There may be things that you will find more interesting on a personal level, and with so much up in the air with Diablo III, there are a lot of questions that didn't get answered very directly and were cut from this report.

  • Diablo III Lore Panel


    Let's begin with the stuff we already know, or at least we thought we knew. With the introduction of the Book of Cain, the aim of this release is to help consolidate, sharpen, and retcom the lore of the previous games. Chris Metzen commented how the original lore of the franchise was basically a mess with so many people with their hands in its creation. Much of the lore is remaining the same but there are some clarifications and minor changes that they needed to change to help tell a better story.

    The Beginning

    Starting at the very very beginning, the Diablo team has created an origin of their Universe. Legend in the Book of Cain, two primordial beings were in a constant struggle between good and bad. Anu, a creature representing good made of primarily diamond and Dragon Tathamet, a seven-headed dragon who breathed evil. The two destroyed each other and the after math essentially created the High Heavens and the Burning Hells. A part of Anu, the Crystal Eye, created the Worldstone. The Worldstone is said to be able to create worlds and reality. It is this Worldstone that the Angels and Demons are fighting over.

    This fight takes place in Pandemonium. You may remember a part of this area from Diablo II before going into Hell. For hundreds of thousands of years, Angels and Demons have fought over control over this area and the Worldstone itself. Inarius, an Angel, and Lilith, a demon, were sick of this eternal struggle so they decided to leave this battle and create their own world. They manage to get to the Worldstone and essentially steal it from the Pandemonium. They bring the stone into another dimension and in this dimension they create Sanctuary, a paradise. Eventually, Angels and Demons procreate and create the Nephalem. The Worldstone slowly drains the Nephalem's powers reducing them to mere men while innately, they hold the power to be stronger then both Angels and Demons.

    Now, some Angels and Demons eventually find out what Inarius and Lillith has done and discovery Sanctuary. However, both sides agree to let man live without influence of either side. However, demons being evil, they decide to try to corrupt man. The three prime evils set a plan in motion while Azmodan and Belial are unhappy with the break of the pact with Heaven. After exiling them to Sanctuary, Belial and Azmodan create a civil war for power in Hell.

    Back on Sanctuary, it has been retconned that the actual hero from Diablo I is Aidan, King Loeric's eldest son. As for his back story, Aidan was missing from Tristram right before the events of Diablo I because he was leading an attack on Westmarch, an order made due to Diablo's corruption of King Leoric. He comes back to Tristram to find out his father has gone mad and his younger brother has been kidnapped by Lazarus and we all know what happens from there. Just to note, a big reason for this change was merely to give this character more weight and importance to help tell a better story.

    Angels

    Moving on from the past, the panel moved to the importance of the role of Angels in Sanctuary. It was mentioned that they have developed a lot more into this side of the conflict to help build and expand the world of Sanctuary. It was mentioned that their role will only get bigger as the franchise progresses. The Angels are created from the Crystal Arch, Anu's spine, of light and sounds. As far as going to the High Heavens themselves, it was not answered one way or the other. The biggest section of the Angels and the High Heavens is the Angris Council. A group of five Angels comprise of the council and rule over the Heavens.



    • Tyrael the Angel of Justice - Tyrael becomes the rouge angel after he witnesses Uldyssian's self-sacrifice and sees man's potential.
    • Auriel the Angel of Hope - Auriel is the Angel the holds the group together.
    • Malthael the Angel of Wisdom - Malthael begins to go mad and darker due to the unknown reasoning and existence of man.
    • Imperius the Angel of Valor - Imperius is a warrior at heart and wants to destroy all semblance of demons including humans.
    • Itherael the Angel of Fate - Itherael can see all paths of future except for that of mankind since their existence was unforeseen.
    Demons

    Opposing the Angels are the main Demons of Diablo III. Belial and Azmodan are the only two remaining Evils after the events of Diablo II. With the destruction of the Worldstone, their focuses have moved to Sanctuary.

    Belial the Lord of Lies

    Belial uses coercion and lies to get others to fight for him. The Triune and vipers are underlings to Belial. It was also noted that in gameplay, many of his underlings will appear human and then turn on you. Belial's pressence will be encountered in Act II around Caldeum. The once prosperous city has fallen and refugees are on the verge of death. Your hero will come into the story trying to figure out how the city has fallen and why Belial is there.


    Azmodan the Lord of Sin

    Azmodan has two of the sins in Diablo III who work for him. Much more pronounced and hands-on the Belial, Azmodan had ruled Hell for over 300 years and is now emerging in Sanctuary to obtain the Black Soulstone to obtain the greatest power. His siege will pour forth from Arreat Crater to attack Sanctuary. On a side note, Sedeah, the Maiden of Lust, was originally the Mistress of Pain who was removed but brought back thanks to the costume contest winner of the 2010 Blizzcon.



    Black Soulstone

    While not much was revealed about the Black Soulstone is was said that Leah is trying to use it to capture and destroy Belial and Azmodan. However, Azmodan is trying to obtain it himself because it will bestow him power that will make him stronger than any other Demon in Hell.


    Areas

    Three new areas were shown from Act II. All three of these areas are playable and play an important part in telling the story as we progress through this Act.



    Caldeum - Caldeum was the jewel of the East. In became the trading center for all of Sanctuary. However, there was turmoil due to the Zakarum, rich merchants, and Wizards all vying for power over the city. Hakan eventually took rule and united the three groups to create the most prosperous city. However, his death left a son to young to rule the city. The Iron Wolves, lead by Asheara from Diablo II, were hired to protect him until he was old enough to rule the city. However, Hakan II removed them and replaced them with his own Caldeum guards. However, Asheara is unsure of why he made this decision.

    Dahlgur Oasis - This small paradise was the birth of Caldeum. A mysterious man rose from the waste and showed the original settlers this source of water which was used to help begin Caldeum. However, the story is said that this mysterious man disappeared back into the waste after showing them.

    The Archives of Zultun Kulle - Zultun Kulle was one of the original members of the Horadrim who helped capture the Prime Evils the first time. However, he eventually became corrupt and evil. He was so strong that they could not kill him they cut him in half. They removed his head and buried it underground surrounded by magical runes. His body has sent into another dimension.

    Questions and Answers

    I will be paraphrasing these questions. We will have complete video coverage of the panel later for direct reference.

    Q: Is Adria dead?
    A: Yes, you will find out how in Diablo III

    Q: Can Angels become Demons?
    A: No, but they can be corrupted and become evil. You will also see Izual again in Diablo III.

    Q: Who is Leah's father?
    A: No comment (Although this is odd because it was already released that Aidan, the hero from Diablo I, is her father.

    Q: Will the heroes from Diablo II have an appearance?
    A: To some degree. Some are hinted at. The Necro's apprentice is in Act II.

    Q: What was the effect of the Worldstone's destruction?
    A: Azmodan's invasion is a direct effect. Also, it is possible it was not actually destroyed since it was only in Sanctuary as a shift in its dimensional existence.

    Q: Will Trag'Oul be in Diablo III?
    A: No, after putting the Necromancers' on their path, he has disappeared.

    Q: What about the lesser evils not having soulstones?
    A: "I wouldn't leave them"

    Q: Why is Arreat Creater the place of the invasion?
    A: Logically, it is where the Worldstone disappeared so it is likely the place where reality is weakest currently.

    Q: Will items connect with lore?
    A: Yes, a lot of Legendary items are tied to lore of previous and new lore.

    Q: Will Ormus appear in Diablo III?
    A: He was and then removed but I would like for him to come back.

    Q: Will we see any areas from Diablo II?
    A: Other than Tristram, no.

    Q: Why does Diablo need a human body but not always?
    A: He primarily needs a body because he is weakened in Sanctuary. It is also because being a human host helps anchor him into the dimension of Sanctuary.


    You can also see every image shown during this panel here.

  • Blizzcon DIII Gameplay & Auction House Panel

    Gameplay

    With the game drawing tantalizingly close to completion, there wasn't any ground braking announcements in this particular panel, but one could say none were expected. Most, if not all of the game features have been announced prior, even if they have not been detailed yet. So in that light, while nothing completely new was founded, we received a great deal of detail on already existent features.

    Achievements & Banner
    As the panel opened they jumped right into it, beginning with DiabloWiki.com - Achievements Achievements. We've heard very little on this front in the past, so any news on them was welcomed. There are three main ways to progress through your achievements.

    • Game Progression:
    This is rather self explanatory, there will be achievements for progressing through the game such as completing a difficulty, or defeating a boss.

    • Obscure Gameplay:
    So you've defeated the normal difficulty, neat. How about weaponless, or even gear-less? Such feats of insanity will be rewarded via achievements.

    • Longterm Goals:
    These goals include things such as completing the Bestiary, a feature while tracks what creatures you've encountered. Or finding every lore book in the game.

    Your achievements progress reflects onto your DiabloWiki.com - Banner Banner, slowly but surely adding new ribbons, facets, or other features. New ways to personalize your banner may become available through these achievements also. These small additions to your banner themselves expand as you complete more and more achievements. For example, as you progress in a certain category of achievements more gems may start appearing on a ribbon dangling from your banner. Or as you play through more Hardcore content the mound of skulls and bones under your banner will grow.



    Crafting

    Crafting is getting an overhaul in Diablo III, becoming more viable for any stage of the game. In this topic we got a good amount of confirmation on the abilities that each of our three DiabloWiki.com - Artisans Artisans will provide.

    This Artisan offers item enchantments. This may ring a bell, as a similar system was in place in Diablo II. With the new system you'll not only be able to enchant your items, but continuously do so, each time rolling better and better stats. This enables a player with enough focus and funds to eventually achieve very high stats on his or her item.

    Through these enchantments, you can also take advantage of very off-class type items on your character. An example the developers gave was a Demon Hunter using a one handed axe and a shield, both of which being enchanted with Hatred regeneration, something that wouldn't natural spawn on such weapons. As the Mystic levels up, she will have access to more powerful enchantments, which are dropped as recipes in the game.

    This old man has very simple, yet essential talents. He can combine DiabloWiki.com - Gems Gems, add sockets to items, and remove gems from items. Exactly what scales as he levels isn't entirely clear yet, but one could imagine a few scalable aspects, such as what level gems he can combine, or what level item he can add sockets to.


    We know more of this Artisan than the other two, both through more exposure via Blizzard, and presents in the beta. The Blacksmith can forge a huge variety of items, some are unlocked as he levels up, others only through recipes you find as drops. He even has the ability to forge legendary items, some with set values. This is a beautiful thing, since through the randomness of Diablos' drop system, by the time you find every item in a set for a mid-level character, you've likely already out leveled the set, making it useless.

    Now through the Blacksmith you'll be able to craft your way to a full set if you're willing to front the needed materials and gold, making those low-mid range set items a viable choice. Besides crafting he can also repair your items, something that will likely need to be done regularly come Inferno, seeing as you loose 10% of your item durability with each death in the game.


    PvP: DiabloWiki.com - PvP PvP hasn't undergone very much change, which at this stage of the game shows how solid it is at heart. As was discovered a while back, the Arena will now have a team death match style of scoring. Meaning that your lives are infinite, you respawn shortly after each death, and the team with the most kills at the end of the game wins. Exactly how long each round will be isn't clear, though one full game will likely be around ten minute. The system of health globes that spawn at certain points on the map wasn't spoken of, so where they are with that is unknown.

    Something that has changed is the amount of players in each match, moving from 3v3 to 4v4. Another useful tidbit of knowledge is that you will not be able to swap skills in between matches. This makes it so a team can adapt their play style to counter an opposing team, without worrying about them having an entirely different skill-set from round to round, making it so comebacks are very possible if a team can adapt efficiently. This forces players to think strategically, instead of just swapping skills to deal with a problem.

    Auction House: As known, you'll be able to trade nearly anything you find in-game through the DiabloWiki.com - Auction House Auction House, be it gold, gems, crafting materials, tombs, etc. Whole character selling will not be available at launch, but will likely be added later on. Search features will be extensive, including a "smart search" which detects common stats across your character and searches for items with similar stats. For the more picky person there will be an advanced search feature where you'll be able to pin point exactly the item you're looking for.


    Life Cycle Of Items

    With the introduction of the auction house, comes a new level of item recycling that had never been seen in a Diablo game. Whereas in Diablo II items more or less drifted around form player to player endlessly rotating, in Diablo III these items can be transformed into many forms, and then like a Phoenix reborn, take shape into new amazing forms.

    In Diablo II the ideal life cycle of an item was as follows: Drop > Wear > Trade > Eventually Sold. That's about as far as it went in the best case scenario. This wouldn't be so terrible if gold had any true value in the game, a purpose.

    In Diablo III this is the ideal life cycle of an item: Drop > Wear> Trade > Eventually Salvaged > Crafted into new item > Eventually Sold. Not only are there many more things you can do with an item, but when it is eventually sold for gold, that gold can be used to continue feeding the economy, or even better, sunk into one of the many gold sinks, removing it from the game and delaying the build up of gold in the economy.


    Final Game Tuning

    Those words have a great ring to them, or maybe just the word "final" being used at all. Tuning, or polishing if you will, comes as the last stage of development. It's where numbers are tweaked, and features are perfected for release. This polishing happens across the entire game, so we'll touch on the interesting topics which were presented.
    • Monster Improvements:
    The creatures of Sanctuary are a formidable bunch, each with a role to play in the heat of battle. Fulfilling these roles is an important job, and sometimes new roles need to be created to address balancing issues. One of these issues that's very clear for any Diablo player is how casters can often avoid affixes of creatures, such as lightning, thorns, or other short distance AoE effects.

    To adress this, the new affix called Mortar was introduced, where a creature will lob fireballs across the screen, endangering casters while flying right over melee characters' heads.

    • Passive Skills & Synergies:
    True to their claims of nothing being final, there have been small tweaks all cross the passive skills. In some cases is may just be a number change, though as they displayed there are a couple of new passive skills to support different builds.

    • Synergies:
    Another way Blizzard is supporting build diversity is by cutting down on synergies. While synergies may look appealing, they actually drastically decrease the amount of viable builds. This is due to the very nature of them, where if you have one skill you're most likely best off following it up with skills that all have corresponding synergies. This forces the player down a certain path in order to maximize the effects. While they're not removing synergies all together, they will be down-tuning their effects, or removing certain corresponding effects completely.


    Class Tuning

    With the idea of class specific resources surely came a huge amount of development to get to this point. As with any complex feature, constant polishing is the only way to achieve balance. While each class is fairing well with no major setbacks, small tweaks are being made to adjust how each class handles.

    The trend Blizzard has noticed in the beta is players will skip the small Fury generators such as DiabloWiki.com - Bash Bash or DiabloWiki.com - Frenzy Frenzy in favor for the larger ones like DiabloWiki.com - Leap Attack Leap Attack, or DiabloWiki.com - Ground Stomp Ground Stomp. To account for this the amount of Fury the smaller generators will create is getting bumped up. They also found that come late game the Barb is having a tough time surviving due to the classes' need to be within melee range of creatures. This is a little more complex polish, and will involve a few defensive changes.

    As we've known, a certain section of skills will slowly become less costly as you level, eventually becoming completely free. This system is undergoing small changes which weren't clearly detailed. All spells are also moving to % weapon damage, making weapon more important to casters than before.

    A common concern with this change is - well if casters depend on weapon damage, shouldn't I just run around with a two handed axe? - This is being addressed by also having the casting speed rely on weapon speed, so while your attack may do more damage with a two handed axe, your DPS may be less than if you were to use a wand with a lower attack, but faster attack speed. There are also class specific buffs on many casting oriented weapons that could sway a players choice from say a sword, or axe.

    Mana seems to be unlimited in the beta, and at this early stage of the game it essentially is. Though as the game progresses you'll have to make crucial choices that will effect how your Mana will behave. It was stated that if one were so inclined, they could form a build where you do indeed have infinite Mana, though they'd be sacrificing other aspects of the class, such as damage, or defense.

    Mantras are now going to have a three second period when first cast where they'll grant double the buff they normally would. This makes them feel like less like a maintenance skill, and more like an active skill that needs to be paid attention to. Combo skills are also undergoing some small changes in their basic functionality, both in how they are combined, and how powerful each level of attack is. For example they plan to increase the range in Deadly Reach to make it more viable.

    As touched on not too long again, the DH will have a completely new Hatred system than as the class does now. At this very moment in the beta Hatred constantly regenerates, though as many have found, you end up constantly low,if not drained of it. To remedy this there will be Hatred generating skills and spending skills, much like Fury. Snares will also see some buffs to better keep enemies at range, or help better preform their role.

    While each class have some very specific changes coming, one change is reaching across every class - awesomeness. Through feedback from the community, and internal testing, a lot of players have found skills as a whole don't make them feel as awesome as they'd prefer. Blizzard has heard the cries, and plan to increase the visual effects of many skills, helping enforce the fact that you're a badass demon-slaying demigod.


    Difficulties

    Many fans have speculated on exactly how difficult each act will be. Some even feel the entire game will be relatively easy. This may be due to the easy content we've seen in the beta, which is indeed very casual. This is by design though, normal difficulty is meant to be a kind of
    tutorial, which teaches you everything you'll need to know, while not punishing you too hard for making mistakes.

    Very casual players will enjoy this first difficulty, while more serious players will find it laughable. This again is by design, because in essence every serious gamer was once a casual gamer. At one point in time we all were n00bs. Blizzard understands this, and wishes to help turn those casual gamers into more dedicated gamers through nice and easy difficulty transitions.

    Blizzard also understands that a large portion of their fan base are hardcore gamers looking for a challenge. Thus comes the concern that even in later difficulties the game will not present an adequate challenge, well Jay Willson assured us that this isn't something we should be worried about. Through a display of testimonials from in-house testers who have been put up against the Inferno difficulty, we're given an idea of how difficult endgame content will truly be.


    Followers

    Followers replacing mercenaries wasn't all too popular among the community. The fact that these new side-kicks were only available in single player was a big change it itself, but the added hit of them only being viable in normal difficulty never settled well with the majority of the fan base. In good fashion Blizzard has listened to these concerns and tweaked followers to be viable through all levels of content, though still only useable while playing solo.


    Town Only Skill Swapping

    The title speaks for itself, but the reasoning behind why this change is being made is interesting. The dev team found that more and more often players would have their skill UI open while slaying monsters, swapping skills out multiple times as they played through small areas. This would make for some problems if left unattended. Not only does it take up a large amount of screen real-estate, but it takes away from the feeling of identity with your character when you're changing such a core aspect so often.

    So right now they're testing town only skill swapping where you'll walk over to this area or NPC to swap out your skills. Jay didn't seem very happy about this, and stated how this isn't the final solution. If this doesn't work they will also be testing an out of combat swap system. This second option could make for some heavy development, since it have been stated that Diablo has no in, or out of combat tracker that these type of systems can communicate with.

  • Blizzcon 2011 Costume Contest

    Blizzard holds their costume contest every year at Blizzcon. In the last two years, a DiabloWiki.com - Mistress of Pain Mistress of Pain and DiabloWiki.com - Monk Monk costume won. Unfortunately, this year there was no Diablo themed winner. However, there were many more Diablo entries as interest in this game rises. Here are images of the Diablo costumes. Click on any image for the larger version.

    Demon Hunter:



    Wizard:



    Barbarian:



    Monk:



    Deckard Cain:



    Treasure Seeker:



    Tyrael:



    Blizzard also had their art contest with a Diablo entry winning 3rd place:

  • The Music and Sounds of Diablo III

    The Music and Sound panel was focused all around the making of the soundtrack for Diablo III. Some very interesting tidbits were shared such as the fact that Diablo III has around 12,000 - 16,000 lines of dialogue. All of which is to help tell the epic story that will unfold during the gameplay. All of the sounds in Diablo III are all focused one keyt aspect of what makes the Diablo franchise so great, randomization.

    When clicking the same spell over and over again, thousands of times, it is important that the sound of this skill is not repeated exactly over and over again which would dull the experience of the hack n' slash genre. Each skill is given multiple tracks for casting, pathing, and contact. Each of these distinct elements are then also given special treatment with varying sounds, lengths, and volumes. When compiled together, they randomize five to ten different sounds that can be repeatedly randomly to help add variety to the button mashing combat.

    Along with this, even the music itself can be randomized. Starting with random sounds, it was mentioned that there are areas where random sounds can be heard while other times silence is used. With the actual music, it is orchestrated in multiple levels. They then use these multiple levels to help create randomized music that blends together harmoniously so that you do not even notice that the music itself has changed and is randomized.

    Bridging the gap between Blizzard North and Diablo I & II was also a key focus for the team for creating the soundtrack of Diablo III. A lot of effort went in to using what Matt Ullman created for the previous games and made iconic to help bring players into the new game seamlessly. While creating something unique for Diablo III, the team made sure to use those iconic sounds. It was even mentioned how when Diablo III was announced at the WWI in Paris, that only music was needed for the entire crowd to know that it was Diablo.

    If you are interested in learning more about the music and sound of Diablo III, you can watch the panel (will be uploaded soon™) and take a listen for yourself. You can also purchase the Diablo III CE which will include the soundtrack and making of.

  • Blizzcon 2011 Hub


    We will be giving full coverage over the 2011 Blizzcon. However, to keep everything in one easy place to reference, this thread will be used as a hub for all the articles and information released from Blizzcon.

    Articles

    Blizzcon Scheduled Coverage - A quick overview of DiabloFans' plan for coverage and schedule.
    Opening Ceremony - Everything Diablo mentioned in the opening ceremony including CE info and a glimpse at the Black Soulstone cinematic.
    Music and Sound Panel - Discussion on the making of the sounds of Diablo III.
    Costume Contest - All of the Diablo themed costumes.
    Gameplay and AH Panel - Coverage of the game mechanics covered in this panel.
    Lore Panel - Discussion on the Lore behind Diablo III and the franchise.
    Diablo Question and Answer Panel - Questions asked by users and answered by Blizzard.
    Black Soulstone Cinematic Panel - Detailed explanation of the work behind creating the Black Soulstone cinematic.

    Videos

    Black Soulstone Cinematic
    Gamplay Footage from 2011 Blizzcon
    Interview with Jay Wilson by Sixen and Force


    Interviews

    WoW & D3 Press/Fansite Interview
    Full compilation of various interviews (Special thanks to doomscream)

    Links

    Diablo III Collector's Edition
    Diablo Wallpaper



    If you find any info we have missed, please feel free to let us know so we can add it to the list.

  • DiabloFans' Blizzcon Coverage




    DiabloFans will have complete coverage over the 2011 Blizzcon. Sixen, Magistrate, and force are all at the event for a first-person and immediate coverage over all of the happenings related to Diablo. Myself and many other members of the news team and DiabloFans staff will also be watching Blizzcon from the virtual ticket feed so we can inform the rest of the community about what is being shared by the Blizzard team. We will be writing up extensive coverage over the Diablo panels as well as finding any other random Diablo news shared.

    As far as Diablo goes, there are four main panels that are focused just on Diablo:

    Diablo III Gameplay and Auction House - Friday 4:45-5:45pm PST
    Diablo III Lore - Saturday 10:00 - 11:00 am PST
    Diablo III Open Q&A - Saturday 11:30 - 12:30 pm PST
    Blizzard Cinematics: Diablo III - Making of 'Black Soulstone' - Saturday 3:00 - 4:00 pm PST

    There is also the possibility of some other panels mentioning information about Diablo:

    Opening Ceremony - Friday 11:00 - 12:00 pm PST
    Artists Stage - Friday 12:00 - 1:15 pm PST
    Blizzard Sound - Friday 12:30 - 1:30 pm PST
    Artists Stage - Friday 1:30 - 2:45 pm PST
    Artists Stage - Friday 3:00 - 4:45 pm PST
    Artists Stage - Friday 4:30 - 5:45 pm PST
    Blizzard's Publishing: So What's the Story? - Friday 4:45 - 5:45 pm PST

    Artists Stage - Saturday 11:00 - 12:15 pm PST
    Artists Stage - Saturday 12:30 - 1:45 pm PST
    Artists Stage - Saturday 2:00 - 3:15 pm PST
    Artists Stage - Saturday 3:30 - 4:45 pm PST
    Closing Ceremony - Saturday 6:00 - 9:30 pm PST

    Stay tuned to DiabloFans for everything you need to know about what is happening at the 2011 Blizzcon. If you have any questions or comments on the coverage, please feel free to ask and share them here.

  • BlizzCon 2011: Diablo Highlights

    Blizzard's annual celebration of all things Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft is this week, and here's the scoop on everything to expect as we near day one of the weekend's events. As always, we here at DiabloFans will do our best to bring you everything the event has to offer, from as-it-happens news to dissection of post-event releases.

    For a complete list of events and a guide through the festivities, make sure you take advantage of Blizzard's BlizzCon app for the Android and i-devices.


    Official Blizzard Quote:



    Are you ready for BlizzCon 2011? Blizzard Entertainment's two-day gaming festival begins this Friday, October 21, at the Anaheim Convention Center. The sold-out show features developer discussion panels, top-tier tournament competition, the popular costume and dance contests hosted by Jay Mohr, an epic closing concert featuring Foo Fighters, and much more.

    You can still join us from home by purchasing a BlizzCon Virtual Ticket, featuring more than 50 hours of live HD coverage streaming online as well as the exclusive BlizzCon 2011 World of Warcraft pet, Murkablo, and yet-to-be-revealed StarCraft II in-game gift. DIRECTV customers in the U.S. can also order BlizzCon as a Pay Per View event and get a Virtual Ticket for free. For more information, read our recent press release or visit BlizzCon.com.

    Blizzard has already highlighted three panels, including Ask the Artists, The Sounds of Sanctuary, and the Artists' Stage. But for even more Diablo excitement, keep an eye on the following events and discussions:

    • Diablo III: Gameplay and Combat Systems (Day 1: 12:00 - 12:50 PM)
    • Diablo III: Skill, Passive, and Rune Systems (Day 1: 1:00 - 1:50 PM)
    • Diablo III in the Lore Zone (Day 1: 4:30 - 6:00 PM; Day 2: 3:00 - 4:00 PM)
    • Diablo III: Gameplay & Auction House (Day 1: 4:45 - 5:45 PM)
    • Diablo III Lore (Day 2: 10:00 - 11:00 AM)
    • Diablo III Open Q&A (Day 2: 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM)
    • Diablo III: Gear and Items (Day 2: 12:00 - 12:50 PM)
    • Diablo III: Lore and Story (Day 2: 2:30 - 3:45 PM)
    • Blizzard Cinematics: Diablo III - Making of "Black Soulstone" (Day 2: 3:00 - 4:00 PM)
    Perhaps Blizzard might even have some tricks up its sleeve. With a portended release in early 2012, some contend that a release date for Diablo III might not be far off.

    To be sure, Diablo certainly has a presence at this year's convention, and we're excited to bring all the action to you! Stick around for all the latest as BlizzCon 2011 kicks off.

    This is also a great time to point out the BlizzCon 2011 Mobile App! Plan on attending the Convention? Use the app to help you plan your trip!


    Official Blizzard Quote:



    Headed to BlizzCon 2011? Bring a guide along with you! The free BlizzCon 2011 Guide mobile app, available now for Android™, iPhone®, and iPod touch®, is part calendar and part event planner. This convenient app is designed to help you make the most of your BlizzCon experience -- you can browse for times and locations of developer panels and tournaments, set reminders to make sure you don’t miss out on a single event, and find your way through the exhibit halls with an interactive floor map.

    Read more on the BlizzCon 2011 Guide page, or download the app for free now through iTunes or Android Market.

  • Cinematic Preview


    ... for there is always something peering back.

    Today Blizzard released two pictures which look to be cut from a cinematic scene in Diablo III. One portraying DiabloWiki.com - Leah Leah looking rather bewildered, and another introducing an enormous creature who doesn't look too friendly. With right around the corner, one could imagine this is a sign of things to come. With the Beta released and much about the game now on display at the Diablo III site, what else could Blizzard wow us with while not giving too much away? Could these images be leading up to our first look at the introduction cinematic, or a trailer of some sort? We'll have to wait and see.


    Click for full-size image

    Click for full-size image

    Special thanks to Doomscream for promptly bringing these images to light.



    While we don't have any solid information on this creature, we do have a portrait of it, which suggests it will have dialog in the game. One could also suggest this creature is the "greater evil" DiabloWiki.com - Cain Cain speaks of, which supposedly constructs the DiabloWiki.com - Grotesque Grotesques.

    "The grotesques may seem slow and senseless, but they hide many dangers within their hideously malformed bodies. A set of spikes lurks beneath the monsters' flesh and foul parasites nest within them. It is said that these horrors themselves are constructed by a greater evil... a darkness that I cannot even fathom."

    - Deckard Cain

    Creature portrait

  • BlizzCon: Foo Fighters and Media


    That's right! The Foo Fighters have just been announced as the band that will be playing at this years' BlizzCon and TAFKAL80ETC will be returning and opening for them! For quite some time, it was speculated that deadmau5 would be doing the concert due to his recent trip to BlizzHQ. Whether or not either of them could top Tenacious D will be something we'll have to wait and see, though... How can you top Jack Black? Then again, the same was said about Ozzy; we all wondered how exactly Blizzard would top him...


    Official Blizzard Quote:



    Over the course of their 16-year career, the Foo Fighters have sold tens of millions of records, won half a dozen Grammy awards, and raised countless voices in singalongs of iconic anthems like "Everlong," "My Hero," "Learn to Fly", "All My Life," “Best of You,” and “The Pretender.” Foo Fighters' BlizzCon debut marks founder Dave Grohl's triumphant return to the convention after playing drums for Tenacious D in last year's show, and comes during an international arena, stadium, and festival tour promoting their seventh album, the international #1 record Wasting Light.

    Opening up the concert will be The Artist Formerly Known as Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain, who are returning to BlizzCon following a two-year interstellar tour through the Koprulu sector. Blizzard's in-house metal band will amp up the crowd with an earth-shaking set of both familiar and brand-new songs drawn from the Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo universes before turning the stage over to Foo Fighters for the main event.

    In addition, the Sons of the Storm will be returning for their very own signing panel as usual.

    Official Blizzard Quote:



    We're shy of a month away from the sixth BlizzCon in history. And once again, the Sons of the Storm will be there in full force! We will have a one-hour signing session on the second day of BlizzCon:

    Saturday, October 22, 10AM to 11AM at the developer signing area

    So if you would like to meet and greet...or get your sign on and your whine on (be warned Red Shirts!), then mark the date and be there on the dot. Lines tend to get crazy! Remember to double-check the signing schedule for any changes.

    Also worth mentioning, the BlizzCon Media section has just recently been updated to include a ton of media from every BlizzCon thus far, as well as the few World Wide Invitationals. Anyone who wants to get a feel of what the environment is like should go check it out!