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The UK-based section of the popular gaming news site IGN has posted an update and recap of Diablo III just a few days ago. For those of you who've followed Diablo III news adamantly for the last couple weeks, it's not really any new information, though some developmentally-encouraging snippets. For those that've been out of the loop for some time, read on.



As was explained shortly after announcement, the newest installation in the Diablo franchise will be similar in length to Diablo II, even in act structure. That does not include, however, multiple expansions, and the introduction of more complex and diverse end-game systems and mechanics, such as randomized quests and the new crafting system.




And, just like Diablo II and I, there will be nightmare and hell difficulties to squeeze out that extra bit of play time out of the same game. What you might not like to hear is how questing has been watered down from Blizzard's original ideas and vague promises post-announcement:



Not sure what fans they asked about that, since basically any fan here would want something more interesting than fetch quests, and that example sounds frighteningly similar to Elder Scrolls IV's completely redundant and uncreative "close ten million Oblivion gates" quest, but I guess we can let the experts handle that. Right?

The actual skills, which have seen enough renditions to make politics look concrete, also have some changes coming out this Blizzcon. Wilson promises that this updated skill system will be seen (and possibly played?) at the coming convention, though he did elaborate slightly on what it would mean in terms of the old and the new:



Though I think I've read contrary to the first sentence earlier in development, none of that matters now. Sweet, simple, classic Diablo skills are here to stay! What some of you might not be to happy about is the ending, there, which may destroy elements of difficulty, replayability, and overall learning curve. Is that a good thing? You decide!

Lastly, Wilson went on to explain why the team decided to scrap the gambling system and the Horadric Cube from older games, arguably two staples of the series that some of us can't help but to shed a tear for their passing.



And there you have it. Enjoy, rant, or whatever. Thanks goes out to FingolfinGR for PMing me this tidbit!

After the latest major news on Diablo III incorporating a more complex and varied crafting system that its predecessors, Blizzard has updated its official Diablo III site with a new crafting page, including some basic Q&A, information, and pretty graphics. Check it out if you aren't familiar with the crafting system already.

Sons of the Storm, a website stuffed with all kinds of work directly Blizzard artists, recently posted a heart-felt recollection of site history and, primarily, family loss. From this might have come something to keep fans happy until the Blizzcon this October, however, in what could be a leak to confirm the announcement of the fifth class at this year's celebration of all things Blizzard:



Of course, most of us were counting on the fifth class being announced, anyway, but it never hurts to be more sure!

Gratitude goes to Akuma_Gin for his incredibly off-the-wall, randomly amazing find. Please see here for the discussion thread.

Over the next several days, we'll be running articles on this interview with Jay Wilson. We thought that the amount of information would be too much to cram into one article, thus you can expect us to explore a new facet of the video every few days.

We hope you enjoy it.

Article Two - Player vs Player

Take a moment to think back upon Diablo II. Remember PvP?
Remember how horrendously incomplete it was?

Players were left with few goals or aims in PvP, aside from killing the other guy. There were vast amounts of exploits that could be used (PK'ing easily the most notorious of the bunch), leaving PvP feeling rushed and incomplete. Sure, it still fulfilled the function of killing other players, but outside of the feeling of killing some other guy, players had no real reason to play PvP.

It seems the boys at Blizzard are learning from their mistakes, choosing to give PvP much more thought in Diablo III than the previous titles.



Of course this is not much to go on, but the fact that they're tight lipped about PvP leaves me thinking that something big is planned. What it turns out to be however, it up for debate. These days, most online games both support and encourage PvP through in-game rewards. New weapons in FPS games, decals and portraits in Starcraft II, even customized titles in games like Guild Wars are all some of the ways other games have rewarded players for dominating in PvP. We have to consider though, would any of these work in Diablo III?

It really all depends on how organized PvP is, and what is involves. If PvP simply pits two players against each other, I wouldn't doubt an ante system being incorporated into the game, so players may lay bets on their success. If PvP pits teams or clans against each other, titles or gold would be a suitable reward for dominance. If there are occasional tournaments held by Blizzard or special PvP events, then shiny new weapons and armor would undoubtedly be given to the victor. If Blizzard is to leave players with nothing but bragging rights as their reward, PvP will have a tough time winning over the majority of the PvE demographic. With specific rewards not obtained anywhere else, we may finally see many normally PvE players sticking their feet into the waters of PvP play.

With this in mind, the bridge between PvE and PvP should be clear. In Diablo II, all public games were open to griefers and PKers at all times. To look at other games once more, titles such as World of Warcraft and Guild Wars have safeguards in place to prevent the killing of players who wish to enjoy the PvE game, but still give PvP players their own slice of the game to call their own. Thus, something along the lines of "PvP Zones", or an arena would do Diablo III well.

We can also look at Blizzard's other titles for a hint on where PvP play may be going. As we all know, World of Warcraft is nearly built around PvP play. Of course this model would not work with Diablo III, but as suggested before, we may see smaller versions of raids in the form of clan vs clan play. With Blizzard's intentions of adding clan support to Battle Net 2.0 in the future, this may become a reality.

All in all though, we still hardly know anything about what is being planned for PvP. All we have at this point is speculation, but at least we can rest easily knowing that there are more ambitious plans for PvP than nothing but a hostile button.

Vote for your favorite submissions from our Create a Monster Contest. I understand that the original announcement stated that only the Staff would be judging the submissions... However, judging by the number of submissions we received for the contest and the number of Staff we have, we did not feel that leaving it up to the few of us would be a fair representation of the judging. With that in mind, yes, I would like for all of you to vote on your favorite entry in the contest. You're all allowed one vote per category (the system will keep track of that itself). The voting will end on September 1st at midnight PST. From there, we (the staff) will review the results you guys have given us and then choose the winners based on our opinion and the general public opinion.

ART

ydemonhunter - The Ogre Jailer

Shisou - The Grand Vessel

Tilt_17 - Nile Warrior

enkeria - Unnamed creature

Sillyfang - The Stabber

Tukenukem - The Wheel of Pain

Kuryozum - Pelekys Getter

paroxysm2010 - The Drozag

2mindsstudio - Kish'va

Umpa65 - Sonneillon Hatred's Left Hand

Ravenrealm - The Guardian

topazcoin - Skyshell

wrathegar - Mind Fiend

Deadlyhazard - Obsidian Beast

Hyralism - Xiansai Wraith

Slevinn - Swamp Lord

Etnieus - Hellforge Zombie

ArtofTy - Iris (Fallen Necromancer)

Krono674 - Bloody Hills Barbarian

WarriorJ - Gukuuji the Stygian Arachnid


LORE

enkeria - Unnamed creature

2mindsstudio - Kish'va

paroxysm2010 - Wretched Shadow

Umpa65 - Sonneillon Hatred's Left Hand

Ravenrealm - The Guardian

topazcoin - Skyshell

Deadlyhazard - Obsidian Beast

Hyralism - Xiansai Wraith

zl_art - Envy Demon

ArtofTy - Iris (Fallen Necromancer)

Krono674 - Bloody Hills Barbarian

WarriorJ - Gukuuji the Stygian Arachnid


MECHANICS

ydemonhunter - The Ogre Jailer

Shisou - The Grand Vessel

Tukenukem - The Wheel of Pain

Kuryozum - Pelekys Getter

paroxysm2010 - Wretched Shadow

Umpa65 - Sonneillon Hatred's Left Hand

Ravenrealm - The Guardian

topazcoin - Skyshell

wrathegar - Mind Fiend

Deadlyhazard - Obsidian Beast

Hyralism - Xiansai Wraith

zl_art - Envy Demon

ArtofTy - Iris (Fallen Necromancer)

Krono674 - Bloody Hills Barbarian

WarriorJ - Gukuuji the Stygian Arachnid

EDIT: Don't forget, the Create a Monster Contest ends the 25th at midnight, make sure you get your submissions in!

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Remember gems? You know, those highly under-powered, easy-to-find sparkly things that made that pleasant PING sound when they dropped? In case you haven't been around for the last two years, gems are making a comeback in Diablo III, but with a major twist. Instead of the old set of five gem grades, Diablo III will feature a jaw-dropping fourteen grades of gems, not to say all the different kinds of gems that will be featured in the game.

Sounds impressive, eh? However, considering that only the first five grades can actually drop in the game, that leaves more than half of them just out of our button-mashing fingertips. A fan over at the official Diablo III forum board decided to do some simple calculations, and, if his math is anything better than his spelling ("monsereus"?), this is what he got:

Quote

The concern that follows is not without merit, I'd say. He came up with a few answers to why we may not have to worry, or solutions to what may be a daunting system (paraphrased:

• Simply increasing the grade drop by one tier (from five to six) would decrease the number of required gems by more than half (19,683 to 6,561).
• Allow higher-end items to be salvaged for these higher-end gem grades.
• Combining gems of different levels could result in a higher-grade gem.

And, of course, there's always the boring way it was done in Diablo II: combining three of the same grade of gem for a higher-grade gem of the same type. However, Bashiok came to the rescue, once more stating how impermanent systems are at the moment, how large the online player base will be (not to account for single player, though), and so forth:




So, there you have it: the conundrum of the gems in a nutshell. What do you think could help alleviate the enormous gaps between lootable and unlootable gems? Is the system fine how it is? Other thoughts?

It's finally nearly upon us. In only two short months, the end of this October, Blizzcon 2010 will once again draw pilgrims far and wide to the gates of the Anaheim convention center. Stated as Diablo's year by Bashiok and others, we intend on making these coming months exciting and full of all that wonderful hype we've come to know and love (and often be disappointed by in years past when nothing Diablo-related came up, but let's forget all that).

A recent post on G4TV quoted Jay Wilson said:



So get ready for Blizzcon 2010! Keep up-to-date with the latest Diablo news, speculation, discussion, and information here on DiabloFans, as well as some nice surprises we have up our sleeves in the coming weeks.

I almost forgot! Thanks goes to Tsukiyomi for this tidbit!

Over the next several days, we'll be running articles on this interview with Jay Wilson. We thought that the amount of information would be too much to cram into one article, thus you can expect us to explore a new facet of the video every few days.

We hope you enjoy it.


Article One - Skill Resources

While this was not the first topic to be discussed in the interview, we did think it was the most interesting. When the interviewer asked Jay about the state of the skill resources, I was expecting him to get shot down and be banned from Gamescom. Shocked was I then, when Jay replied "Oh, I'll talk about where they're at."

Recently, we were made aware of the Wizard losing Instability for a new skill resource. However, we did not know what this new resource was, nor did we know how instability worked. Both questions were resolved within the interview.



One could argue that this information is redundant now that instability has been scrapped, however it is still interesting to explore what could have been. I do think it was a good decision to do away with Instability, due to the fact that, as Jay explained, this resource would not have affected gameplay much. Players would have been free to spam skills without fear of being unable to cast, since the penalty for multiple casts did not involve an inability to cast more spells. Instead, players would be rewarded with more damage. Obviously, this would have called for Wizards to get as much Faster Cast Rate as humanly possible, to reach the point of instability quickly. This system would have also been open to exploits. Think about it, would it matter if the spells actually hit a target, or would the Wizard be able to reach the point of instability by casting spells at nothing?



Now, this description is a bit more vague than instability. Basically all we know for sure from this, is that it's a relatively static resource pool, and it regenerates very quickly.

What it seems Blizzard is trying to achieve here, is to make players choose spells carefully. With a static pool, players will be forced to choose between casting a volley of low cost spells, or save their Arcane Power for one or two powerful spells. With a quick recharge rate, players will most likely be stalled one or two seconds before being able to unleash more spells.

Personally, I think this system will be much more dynamic than Mana in the previous games, since at high levels players often had countless bonuses to their mana pool. Factor in mana leech items, and you rarely had to concern yourself with your mana pool. Should Blizzard choose to only give bonuses to Arcane Power through skills, then we may see an interesting, dynamic system that forces players to think before they cast.



While it is news to us, this mechanic sounds awfully similar to Fury. Like the Barbarian, it sounds like the Monk will have to attack to generate his resource, which can then be used to fuel more powerful moves. However, this description is still quite vague, Blizzard will have undoubtedly foreseen similarities between the two systems, and done their best to distance them from one another. It also sounds as if the development team is revisiting the charge system the Assassin used with several of her Martial Arts skills. The extent of these similarities are yet to be seen, of course.

We also have to wonder what exactly combo-moves entails. Will they function as preparatory moves, with the Monk using any low damage skill before being able to use any one of his "signature moves"? Or will the Monk be forced to use sequences of combo moves to cast a specific signature move? Furthermore, which skills will qualify as signature moves? Powerful moves like 7 Sided Strike are obvious contenders at the moment, but no doubt Blizzard has all kinds of signature moves planned for the Monk. However it turns out, it sounds as if the Monk is going to have a beat-em'-up feel to him.

Sadly, we still have no word on the skill resource of the fifth class. However, we do know that the Barbarian and Witch Doctor are still using Fury and Mana respectively, so hopefully Blizzard won't be throwing us any curve balls in the months approaching Blizzcon.