Realm of Gaming Preview - Diablo III
Diablo fans rejoice! The rumored third game has finally been announced. Blizzard recently made the announcement at its event in Paris.
The story is set 20 years after the likes of Diablo and Baal. It has been revealed that one of the well-known non-playing characters will return in Diablo III, Decard Cain. Cain returns to the remains of the Cathedral of Tristram, searching for ideas as to a new evil that seems to be approaching. Following that, a comet hit ground where Diablo once entered the world… Heroes of the world must now save humanity from the great evils that have arisen from the underworld.
Who will you choose to be?
Two classes of characters have been confirmed at this point in time. There will be female versions of each class, as well, and armor will be specific to each character class.
The barbarian is back and comes with fury and some other familiar characteristics. Other abilities have been added or revamped. A few of his known skills include the ground stomp, leap, whirlwind, seismic slam and cleave.
The witch doctor is one of the newly added character classes in this sequel. His tribe is the tribe of the Five Hills. These people were thought to be legend, but they do exist. The witch doctor has the power to summon undead creatures to literally tear apart his enemies. His (or her) skill set includes the firebomb, locust swarm, mass confusion, soul harvest and horrify.
More information on these character classes and others currently unannounced will inevitably be revealed in time. Keep watch on the official Diablo III website.
The Undead will again rise along with the following enemies that must be fought off: the Khazra, Gnarled Walkers and Dark Cultists. The Undead are skeletons that have risen up from various parts of other former living and breathing beings. They are easily summoned if pieces of skeletons lie around. They can be ‘organized and directed’, unlike other types of enemies. Also known as ‘goatmen’, the Khazra were originally human but sought only to prevail over other adversaries and now only partially resemble the semblance of a human being.
Various enhancements have been made to the game overall. A new dropped item is an orb of life, which is supposed to save you from having to click a potion to heal when in the heat of battle. This should make things interesting. The mana and vita bars are more animated and look cool. A hotbar to easily choose different skills is now available, making it much quicker. The mouse can be used to quickly switch between skills. The game seems to be more colorful than I remember Diablo 2 being. Case in point, the barbarian may be using an axe with lightning and it is lit up with blue and white flickering animation. The visuals that I’ve seen from the trailer (of cutscenes) are astounding, with the candle looking almost indistinguishable from the real thing. The glimmering reddish-orange light emanates from the wick while the wax slowly melts. The environmental aspects of the game will come more into play in Diablo III, such as massive walls being destroyed. Oh, and the game will be represented in 3D this time around!
From what we currently know and have seen so far, Diablo III looks to mark the sensational return of the classic franchise. With the success of World of Warcraft, I expect no less with Diablo III. Keep your eyes open for more information to be released!
Source: Realm of Gaming
Gamers Universe: Diablo 3 Preview
Call me a reactionary, cantankerous old diehard if you will, but I’m not ashamed to admit that when Diablo 3 was announced, tears welled up in these ageing eyes. Tears of sheer, nostalgic happiness. Diablo has been out of the picture for a decade, and the absence has been a painful one.A stroll through sunless catacombs
But I soon scrubbed my tears away when Blizzard promised to walk us through one of the levels. I needed crystal clear vision to take in all the details.
True to the spirit of dungeon crawling, the Diablo 3 presentation kicked off with the arrival of a large muscle-bound man sporting more weapons than the average South American dictatorship. He stood in the bowels of the earth, amidst the dust of what might have been a mausoleum or a complex series of catacombs. The grey stone around and overhead looked as though it would crumble at the slightest sound. The torches hanging over the path before him failed to penetrate the darkness of the pit which yawned beneath.
(Excuse us for getting a little theatrical. We obviously missed our vocation.)
The barbarian had but a few seconds to take in his surroundings before he was assailed by a horde of zombies. He held his ground, dexterously avoiding their frenzied assaults and delivering crushing counterattacks. Moments later the ground was littered with bodies and the barbarian stood triumphant. He considered reaching for an elixir, but decided instead to heal the few scratches he’d sustained with a red orb, one of Diablo 3’s new pick-ups.
A second, more formidable creature awaited him at the end of the corridor. The barbarian leapt forward and struck it with terrible force, but the creature began to shudder ominously. Acting on instinct, the warrior dived backwards- and not a moment too soon, for the creature exploded. Hideous serpents fountained from its smoking corpse, but our hero soon stamped them flat or beheaded them.
A familiar faceBeware of the dogTwo’s company, three’s a crowd
As if he knew what would follow, the barbarian swapped his mundane battleaxe for a pair of magical blades. They shone pale blue in the subterranean gloom. The next chamber contained a surprise- Deckard Cain, the village elder from the original Diablo. This wise old soul began to recount an ancient tale, but the barbarian caught his arm and requested more practical aid. Cain was more than obliging: at the elder’s command, two archers sprung from the shadows and took up a station to the rear.
The newly-formed party proceeded carefully. After a few paces the barbarian caught sight of a group of monsters loitering ahead. Rather than charge in amongst them, he halted and cunningly used his weapons to demolish the wall nearby, bringing tons of rubble down on his oblivious foes. The few monsters that escaped the shower of stones were easy prey for the archers, and the barbarian sealed the deal with a devastating Whirlwind attack.
After dispatching countless opponents, the barbarian and his companions entered a high vaulted room with a single doorway. Daylight glinted on the threshold. But as soon as the party set foot inside the room, the air changed and four eerie flames erupted on an elevated square slab at the centre. The fires roared furiously and a huge, misshapen creature appeared in their midst: a zombie hound, tendons and bones plainly visible beneath its rotting hide.
The hound was a canny adversary, focusing its attacks on the archers while the barbarian approached. Despite its unearthly fury, however, our hero was able to deliver some telling blows and eventually the creature lay dead in a pool of its own vile gore. The death of this mighty guardian presented Cain and his companions with an opportunity to escape the dungeon. The barbarian followed- but not before he’d helped himself to the treasures he’d discovered within a nearby chest, sturdy magical armor and enough gold to pave a palace.
While Cain was quick to make his exit, he lingered long enough to summon some further assistance. The stairs up from the underground arena gave out onto a dense jungle, out of which stepped a masked shaman swathed in jade green feathers. The shaman was well-versed in the dangers of the tropical environment, and when enemies appeared from the undergrowth he eviscerated them with a swarm of bees.
As yet more opponents appeared the shaman conjured a group of horrid demons into being. A dire threat in themselves, these creatures became even more lethal when the shaman cast another spell on them, enabling them to call upon their own swarms of bees. While the demons ripped and tore a path, their creator mopped up any strays with awe-inspiring lightning magic.
The barbarian was left speechless by the power of his newfound ally. He’d encountered many species of magic in his life, but nothing could compare to the shaman’s eerie enchantments, which caused a wall of zombies to rise from the earth.
The two heroes made short work of any monsters they encountered, and before long they reached a glade. The shaman detected the advance of a mighty foe, and disintegrated his demon servants with a wave of one hand to leave room for two further heroes- a dauntless female warrior and fearsome witch. The four readied themselves for their greatest challenge yet- a monster so massive it crushed stones underfoot. But even a creature of such bulk was no match for the barbarian’s blades and the shaman’s charms, and after a few minutes of intense battle it dropped like a felled oak, leaving the party free to continue their adventure…
Diablo 3 has been announced for PC and Mac, with a release date still to be confirmed.
Source: Gamers Universe
Eurogamer Preview: Diablo III
It’s easy to figure out where Blizzard is going with Diablo III. Or so it seems. Throughout the weekend of press conferences, panels and interviews that followed the game’s memorable unveiling in Paris last weekend, the developers’ speech was peppered with phrases like this:
“Be an awesome action game.” “If you can click a mouse, you can play Diablo.” “It’s frickin’ cool to break stuff.” “I don’t think we’ve broken a hundred monsters on screen at a time, but we’ve flirted with it.” “It starts an awesomeness arms race.” “Monsters do two things: show up and die.” “We wanted to make that really loud.” “The only thing better than a zombie dog is an exploding zombie dog.”
Diablo III is more. More action, more death, more skills, more colour, more story, more beauty, more top-down, click-hungry, loot-happy, fast-paced, over-the-top, randomly-generated, fantasy-horror slaughter. Eight years after the last instalment in Blizzard’s classic action-RPG series - probably ten, by the time it comes out - Diablo III is more of the same. Beneath the waves of excitement generated by its return - in the form of twenty stunning minutes of game footage - there is the slightest undertow of anti-climax. Is ‘more of the same’ really all there is to it?
Blizzard’s chief design guru, Rob Pardo - formerly lead designer on World of Warcraft - argues that traditionalism can’t really be a sin when no-one else is upholding the tradition. “If there were a ton of games out in the market that are the isometric action-RPG model, then we probably would have more seriously done a different approach,” he says, pointing out that two Blizzard “splinter groups” - Flagship and ArenaNet - have already chosen to take “Diabloesque” gameplay in new directions with Hellgate: London and Guild Wars. “But it just always amazes me, with a game series that’s as successful as Diablo’s been, that I don’t feel like there’s a lot of great competing games in that same genre.”
The backdrops have a gorgeous, painterly look.
So the road well-travelled it was, laid out under the eagle eye of the camera; although Diablo III is fully 3D, its top-down camera perspective apes the isometric 2D bitmaps of the previous games in the series. Art director Bryan Morrisroe isn’t equivocal: “Isometric was the best decision we could have made,” he says. Blizzard is rock-solid in this conviction, and it’s right to be for a host of reasons: the quintessential Diablo point-and-click control scheme, the need for spatial awareness of hordes of monsters attacking from all sides, and the randomised modular maps, to name but three.
Oddly, “random” wasn’t a word you heard much during the game’s initial presentation at the Worldwide Invitational, but it’s a cornerstone of the Diablo franchise - randomly-generated maps and monster spawns making the games as frighteningly replayable as they are addictive. Lead designer Jay Wilson - who previously worked at Relic on Dawn of War and Company of Heroes - later explained that dungeons would still be heavily randomsied, but the overworld much less so in Diablo III.
“We decided we’re going to make that a more static geography, because we wanted to also start building a world,” Pardo explains. “We want you to learn these places, learn where towns and villages are. But we’re still going to randomise the monsters on top of it, and that’s where the idea for random adventures came from.”
Female models don’t have different stats. Take note, Age of Conan.
Random adventures are the most intriguing concept in Diablo III at present, although Blizzard is quite vague about them, because it’s still deciding exactly how they should be implemented. The idea is that, along with layouts and enemy spawns, actual events - some scripted, some AI-driven - can be dropped into play at random, whether in dungeons or on the set overworld maps. The example in the demo footage is a wall collapsing and blocking a path, but others might take the form of moments of NPC drama, or complex, multi-layered enemy encounters.
We’ll have to wait - patiently, as followers of Blizzard always have to wait - to find out more about these. But the implications of random adventures are arresting, to say the least. They promise to grant Diablo III the cinematic impact of a heavily scripted, linear action game in a free-form scenario that never plays the same twice, that’s always ready to surprise. Suddenly, Diablo III is starting to look a little less traditional.
It’s always this way with Blizzard: conservative, sometimes even derivative on the surface, you have to dig deep into the games’ designs to find the modest-sounding innovations that subtly but fundamentally rewrite the rules of whatever genre they’re working in. The other example in Diablo III - that we currently know about, again - is health globes.