Game News Spectre of Diablo III

[Sol Invictus]

Tags: Blizzard Entertainment; Diablo III

Blizzard may have inadvertantly hinted towards the development of Diablo III when it announced that it was looking for a <a href=http://www.blizzard.com/jobopp/bn-lead-game-designer.shtml>lead designer</a>, 3d character artist, environmental technical artist and a reports and tools programmer to work at Blizzard North, the team that created the original Diablo title and its sequels, Diablo II and D2X.
<br>
<br>
GameSpy, either acting on behalf of Blizzard, making an informed guess or simply putting up a filler page has decided to launch a profile page of the aforementioned <a href=http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/diablo-iii/>Diablo III</a>. Whether the game is to be a true sequel to the Diablo series (which is what I'm hoping for) or nothing more than a "World of Warcraft" mmorpg spinoff, assuming related rumors are true, is anyone's guess.
<br>
<br>
I may not like what Blizzard did with WOW but the fact remains that they're one of the few companies with the budget and quality assurance, capable of delivering a solid AAA title.
<br>
<br>
Thanks for the news tip <b>serj-</b>.

 

[z3r'0']

I am of two minds on this. Diablo is cool and all but...
What about Starcraft? Damn fools...
Still they would probalby never surpass Starcraft.

Interesting developments.

:twisted: :evil: :twisted: :evil:

 

[Andyman Messiah]

If they choose to make StarCraft 2, it'll be trash 'cause the first game was better than the best (but not better than Total Annihilation).

With Diablo however, it's not too much to fail with. First game was an okay romper stomper in dungeons, but it never appealed to me. Too boring.

 

[Surlent]

Gaah, hope they don't make another MMO.
Even without Bill Roper, Blizzard could deliver fine sequel to Diablo. Old school quality hack 'n slash, not only addictive but challenging too.

'Sides multiplayer should be free. Heard any FPS game that has multiplayer pay per month ? No ? MMO's wouldn't need that if they could just allow ppl to host them on their own servers.

Personally I found Diablo games addictive and good dungeon crawl whereas Sacred and Dungeon Siege boring same ol same ol. Everyone though gets self repeating sooner or later.

edit_ : Rex, no link to any Blizzard site mentioning about that job offer ?? Do you mean this page ? http://www.blizzard.com/jobopp/bn-lead-game-designer.shtml
Previous experience with RPGs is only a plus. Seems that they could make any new "rpg" game.

 

[Lady Armageddona]

I highly doubt that. But it would be nice all the same.
However even I agree that these days Blizzard are nothing more of a shadow of their former glory, and though it will live it will be only to service WoW and do games in the Warcraft/Diablo/Starcraft universes.
And that is that.

 

[xemous]

If they choose to make StarCraft 2, it'll be trash 'cause the first game was better than the best (but not better than Total Annihilation).

yes it was.

if they do make it i wont buy it. dont need it.

 

[AZ]

I liked the first Diablo, but I felt the second boring. I did not liked the charters, the charter developement was linear, and the gfx was plain ugly.
I hope they will go back to the roots.

 

[LlamaGod]

I dont see how blizzard makes 'AAA' titles.

They just take something that exsists, strip it down to the dumbest levels and slap on pretty graphics and FMVs.

 

[Hajo]

Diablo II wasn't all ugly. I liked the jungle and travincal, also the egypt-style desert tombs. The arcane sanctuary was kind of cool, and the harem levels were nice also. A lot of images could have been better, but overall it was more than ok for me.

I don't know how many hours I've spent on Diablo, Diablo II and LOD, but if they make Diablo III I'm looking forward to another game I'll most likely enjoy to play.

IIRC they said they won't make another game with the same graphics engine. I dislike the look of the 3D engines of most games, so I hope they will make DIII with the same old engine that they used for DII and LOD, despite the announcement.

 

[corvax]

I liked the first Diablo, but I felt the second boring. I did not liked the charters, the charter developement was linear, and the gfx was plain ugly.
I hope they will go back to the roots.

yes go back to the roots, the first Diablo had so many interesting characters, and the character development... wow, yeah they should defenitely model d3 on d1

diablo 1 was cool not because of its story, characters, etc. it was cool because it was new, refreshing and there wasn't much like it IN 1996

 

[mrmarcus]

And around the world mouse manufacturers rejoiced at the news Diablo III would be made.

 

[keeks]

Blizzard actually has 3 teams now: Blizzard North (makers of Diablo 1 and 2), the regular Blizzard (aka the RTS division) and the newly formed MMO team. I wouldn't be surprised if they're working on both Starcraft 2 (the developers have been hinting at it for a while in the Blizzard forums) and Diablo 3.

Gamespy actually has a Starcraft 2 page up as well.

 

[FireWolf]

Perhaps they're not making a diablo game? Might not be an MMO, either. They could be developing a whole new RPG, rather than re-hashing diablo once again. There's only so far the hack 'n' slash game can go. If they just go with another Diablo game, I will be dissapointed, since that just reeks of cop-out cash-cow milking to me.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I think it's more likely that they would make Diablo 3 instead of a whole new RPG or action RPG because that's just the sort of thing Vivendi Universal is doing with BlizzarD: milking the franchises for all their worth. I'd be very happy too if they made a whole new series without having to butcher Diablo, but I seriously doubt that. That said, I hope they do make Diablo 3 and not World of Diablo.

 

[Killzig]

Mm. Phat Lewt!

 

[AZ]

I liked the first Diablo, but I felt the second boring. I did not liked the charters, the charter developement was linear, and the gfx was plain ugly.
I hope they will go back to the roots.

yes go back to the roots, the first Diablo had so many interesting characters, and the character development... wow, yeah they should defenitely model d3 on d1

diablo 1 was cool not because of its story, characters, etc. it was cool because it was new, refreshing and there wasn't much like it IN 1996

If you remember, in D1 every charter could learn any spells, learn to use any weapon. That's not true whit D2 - for example if you play the amazon character, the only real choice is spear or bow.

Some places had nice immersion, like the egyipt thomb, but i did not liked the random generated outdoor maps. Going down more and more levels underground for enemies had some kind of feeling I liked.

 

[Surlent]

It's true D2 had balance issues, but it was the whole point amazon used only spears or bows. The play styles varied greatly say between necromancer and barbarian. Playing the game with multiple characters was the key to variety.

 

[Sol Invictus]

The synergies and monster elemental resistances in 1.10 add even more variety to the game because there's a lot more combinations you can go with and no single spell is considered 'the most powerful' (Frozen Orb used to be the most powerful spell) and players can equip themselves with a variety of different items to define their characters and playing style.

Prior to 1.10, the types of items in the game were limited to a very small selection and early skills were considered quite useless because spending skill points on low prequisite skills was wasteful in the late game. In the 1.10 patch, every skill, low or high, had a use. Low level skills benefitted certain high level counterparts through synergies, and likewise, those high level spells made the low level ones pretty powerful as well.

Diablo didn't have the variety or complexity of its sequel.

 

[corvax]

If you remember, in D1 every charter could learn any spells, learn to use any weapon. That's not true whit D2 - for example if you play the amazon character, the only real choice is spear or bow.

Some places had nice immersion, like the egyipt thomb, but i did not liked the random generated outdoor maps. Going down more and more levels underground for enemies had some kind of feeling I liked.

O.K. You have a point regarding weapons and spells, mostly because I myself like to mix such things up :wink: . However such opinion is very subjective as some people like D2's more involved development of specific characters, rather than a "generic' one of D1.

I don't get you with the places though. You liked going down underground in random genrated dungeons but not across different (woods, desert, jungle, hell) also random genarated areas. : Your opinion would be different if you played D2 before D1.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Diablo 1 had a much better atmosphere than Diablo 2, and the monster animations were a lot more fluid and better rendered than they were in the sequel. What I liked most about Diablo 1 was the gothic setting, with the basement of the ruined cathedral and so forth. The game felt simply sinister in comparison to the lighter themed Diablo 2.

 

[Balor]

Yea, in fact, when I got Diablo 2 I kinda went pop-eyed - what the hell, the graphics is WORSE then in first one!
Charactes look like a bunch of pixels huddled together!
Well, eventially I got used to (not that I've played it a very long time... had some fun with mods, tho), but I hope they'll come up with better graphics next time.
And you are completely right about atmosphere...
I still remeber Leoric 'greetings' me in his Crypt:
"Prepare yourself, mortal, to serve my Master for eternity!"
Now that was creepy.

 

[corvax]

Personally I do favor D1 over D2. The darker setting did it for me, however I still hold that the level design was much more bland in D1. Going down random dungeons which changed every 5 or 6 levels was quite monotonic even for 1996 standards. I just couldn't play for more than 1hr at a time before getting bored. D2 was only slightly better in this aspect (I could play it for 2hrs )

 

[Jed]

I played D1 to the last couple of levels and gave up due to difficulty. It was my first computer game, waaayyy back in '97. I didn't start playing computer games seriously again until '99. I never even thought of giving D2 a spin. Maybe I'm missing out? I like the sound of Egyptian-themed levels...

 

[Sol Invictus]

You're definitely missing out. Go grab yourself the Diablo Battle Chest or whatever it's called with both D2 and its expansion.

 

[Kortalh]

Heard any FPS game that has multiplayer pay per month ? No ?

Sony's PlanetSide. And I think there was a World War II-based MMOFPS. Not that either sounds particularly good. :wink:

I'd really love to see a StarCraft sequel, but only if it's done in the realistic, gritty style of the original. I never cared for the cartoonish style of WarCraft 3 and WoW, but fantasy tends to be more lenient toward that sort of thing than science fiction is.

The cutscenes in the original StarCraft were very memorable, and if they made a sequel without sticking to that feel, I don't think I'd even bother with the game.

I'd also be pleased if they stuck to the larger armies (perhaps even Dawn of War style) rather than War3's lame tiny-army restrictions.