Diablo III Forum Activity

Diablo community manager “Bashiok” discusses skill caps, advancements in the RPG genre, which resource type characters have to tap for spells, and more in his latest responses on the official Diablo III forums.

On a player-made map of Act II:

Although that isn’t Act II, at least not all of it. Or most of it. The playable area in the demo is a portion of the second act, not the whole thing.

And to clarify, our exterior zones have static borders, roads, and town placements. Most of the area in-between is static too, but there are these chunks of the map in various shapes that are essentially cut out. We then create pieces to fit those shapes and sizes, a bunch of them for each, and the game randomly picks which ones to use. They could have quests, little events, mini-bosses, just different scenery, or whatever else we want to cook up in them. It keeps the exterior locations static, while still having some random bits in there to keep them fresh. We refer to it as the adventure system.

And to clarify on THAT in case anyone hasn’t been following along much, we keep our exteriors static for the most part because following the edges of the map to find exits and find where the town/questgivers are just wasn’t a fun use of randomization. You also couldn’t easily or quickly meet a friend anywhere outside of town because nothing was ever in the same place. And lastly it helps us create a sense of a world that actually exists, the towns and cities and at least the important points of interest exist in stationary locations.

The dungeons, in addition to being random in design and flow, also use the adventure system to bring in random events and quests.

On skill caps:

Skill caps start at 5 and go up from there. We’ll have a way for them to be increased and right now we like the idea of the player being able to choose which one/s they want to increase. So if that’s the case it’ll probably be an item you can use to “unlock” a skill cap to a higher number, and maybe a few of these skill cap unlocking items will be provided through playing the game (major quest/act completion rewards) and then also maybe as very rare item drops.

On the game’s RPG mechanics:

Well I think it’s kind of easy to look at changes and advancements in the RPG genre as a whole and narrow them down to any number of sources to fit each use.

To make a car analogy (my favorite!) it would be like having issues with the newest version of the mustang because its body styling takes into account things like passenger safety and aerodynamics, and being upset by this because these are features also found in the ford focus. A clearly inferior car in the eyes of the mustang enthusiast.
These types of ideas could never have been thought of or would ever be included in the mustang, of course, had not both cars been manufactured by ford.

It’s just all a bit silly. What I do think is interesting is the differentiation between the hardcore Diablo II players (most of y’all) and the majority of the rest of the game buying public. From our showing at BlizzCon and PAX a lot of the articles and off-site (non fansite) discussions are saying that Diablo III may not be doing enough to change itself from Diablo II.

If those people read some of the posts here you’d think we were putting a Diablo sticker on a WoW box and calling it a day. So it’s just an interesting difference between the audiences and how level of dedication changes perceptions and expectation.

And I don’t mean to lump everyone together, I’d say aside from the trolls the majority of posters here are actually level headed and logical. At least able to take multiple things into consideration. Reasonable thought process and understanding that the game is a work in progress, and not someone that sees a character with a slight hunch and makes a leap of logic that we must be using model/animation assets from a different game.

That’s still my favorite. Cause of it bein’ so stupid ‘n all.

On jagged graphics and other eye candy:

We don’t have anti-aliasing in the game yet. We only use DX9 at the moment and some of the visual effects we employ don’t allow for anti-aliasing to be used at the same time. There are many solutions, we haven’t decided on what course of action we’ll be taking.

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I think you’re confusing in-game ‘machinima’-style videos with pre-rendered cinematics. The Monk and Wizard announcement videos were made using in-game assets, models, and animations. Mostly shot using camera views and close-ups that the game was never designed for. The WWI announcement cinematic is obviously of a different quality. But the fact that they’re even confused for one another is a big compliment for the team that creates the in-game promotional videos. They do an incredible job.

But yes, the game will include pre-rendered cinematics. And obviously they will be amazing.

On which resource type characters will have to tap:

We’ve stated that only the Witch Doctor is planned to use mana at this point in time, if that clarifies anything for you.

As to what the Wizard and Monk may use, we’ve not said.

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I think when we unveil the resource system the Wizard uses it will actually make a lot of sense.

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They don’t HAVE to of course, but it definitely makes playing each class a lot more unique and interesting when your skills are not only flavored or tailored to your class but your ability to use them is also specifically flavored and tailored to your class.

The barbarian fury system works off of the idea that as he gets more into the battle, doing and taking more damage, he builds up this power which lets him unleash more damage. That idea is ingrained in the way he plays and the way his skills look and work. And the visual style of the resource system itself, of the three fury orbs, is sort of a molten lava. Which again plays into his very physical earth-shattering flavored skills.

The other class’ resource systems play very much into what each class is, their flavor and kit, and individual style in approaching combat.