Diablo 2 is enjoying a Renaissance of sorts on the back of the Diablo 3 announcement. The classic game is back in the sales chart at number 6!
I gave my copy of Diablo II to my cousin a few years ago, so now I’m beating my head against the wall. If you’re like me and would like to replay Diablo 2 with friends on Battle.net, I suggest you find yourself $5.
Why $5? Because that’s how much a Diablo 2 CD key costs. That’s an original key (not some keygen thing) and it works like a charm. You download Diablo II, you enter the key and you’re ready to roll.
Here, I just saved you $55 (the Diablo Battlechest retails for 59.99).
Update: Here’s a direct link to one site offering it at $5 - link.
1) More color, less darkness According to lead producer, Keith Lee, Diablo 3 is going to feature more outdoor environments with a lot more colors. Instead of pleasing the core audience though, this move has so outraged gamers that they started an online petition. They want good, old darkness back and the colors out the door!
2) Less monsters, more varied killing Jay Wilson, lead designer on Diablo 3, states that instead of hack-and-slash through throngs of monster, Diablo 3 players will have to focus on killing fewer but tougher monsters. Things like positioning, skills, and so on will have a greater effect than they did in Diablo 2.
For example, the Berserker monster has a charged up attack that deals massive damage. If you dodge the attack though, the Berserker is left vulnerable. Similar fate awaits the Skeletal Shieldbearers when they drop their shields.
3) Epic heroes, class quests According to Jay, the new Diablo 3 characters will be more badass than ever before. Judging by the demo, it seems likely that there could be fewer characters but with a lot less overlap than say WoW. Class-specific quests, armor, etc are also in the works.
4) COOP play - large-scale, harder battles Judging by the demo, it could take four or more characters to kill a boss in Diablo 3. I hope these bosses can be defeated by a single player too (same as Diablo 2 ubers). The coop play will be through Battle.net - it’s not 100% clear whether that will be free (same as Diablo 2).
5) No more potions, less downtime In order to speed up the game, the designers have removed the massive belts full of potions. Instead, each monster has a chance to drop a red sphere that replenishes health. That means that you can go into combat even when wounded and get healed that way.
There’s more than five differences? Discuss below!
Blizzard’s Worldwide Invitational 2008 starts in half an hour in Paris. If you can check the intro image - there’s a dark shape that is more and more visible.
12:15 — Announcement…..!! Guy playing Diablo music on an acoustic guitar…
12:18 — Footage of large scale battles, comets streaking across the sky, demons, Diablo 3 officially announced.
12:20 — Jay Wilson, lead designer on Diablo 3 coming out. He’s going to demo the game.
12:20 — It’s apparently still an action RPG. Same interface — red health and blue orbs. Skill bar at bottom. 3/4 overhead perspective. Character with 2 axes hacking at demons in what appears to be a foggy cathedral. Has a jumping attack where he smashes the two axes into the ground.
12:21 — The axe guy is the barbarian class. Says improvements have been made, like the hotbar for skills. Using the mouse wheel and tab key you can quickly switch between skills. Whoing inventory. Appears to still have slot limits. Using enchanted axes with frost and lighting ,which stuns and freezes opponents.
12:25 -- Each piece of gear is custom designed for each class. Barbarian puts on demonic sort of garb with giant devil horns. Barbarian can hop across gaps on the map. Barbarian dislodged a rock wall and dropped it on zombies, killing them. Demoing moving whirlwind attack.
12:33 -- Witch doctor can cast out locus swarm, which spreads between targets and deals damage. Can summon mongrel things that he can cast locust swarm on, which buffs their damage. Outdoor environment now. Quite pretty in that vibrant, slightly cartoonish Blizzard graphical style. Like with StarCraft 2 and it's similarities to the original, Diablo 3 looks and sounds, at least at a glance, quite similar to previous games. Witch doctor also has a mass fear type of ability.
12:36 -- Multiplayer will work over battle.net. Heads into a final fight against some gigantic moving trees. Final boss here, called siegebreaker assault beast, is absolutely gigantic, maybe around six or seven times taller than the player characters.
You've probably heard it already but here's the summary:
Activision, Inc. and Vivendi have announced that they will combine Vivendi Games, Vivendi's interactive entertainment business which includes Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft, with Activision, creating the world's largest online and console game publisher, the total transaction being worth more than US$18.9 Billion.
Hmm, I wonder if this would change anything in terms of how Blizzard develops its games. I sincerely hope they don't start licensing their game "worlds" to allow Activision to create second-rate games. I want Diablo 3 but I don't want a broken game... (Vivendi already announced once that Diablo 3 is going to be an MMO).
Remember when just before Starcraft 2 was announced, there was a rumor about a Medusa demo.
Some people thought it could be something related to Diablo 3 (I wish!). The mystery is over - courtesy of Kotaku:
Sigaty, Starcraft 2’s lead producer, told me that the original codename for Starcraft 2 was “alpha”, but when the game was nearing alpha they decided to change it.
“We couldn’t say that alpha was hitting alpha, so we needed another name,” he said. They settled on Medusa.
This isn’t another Diablo 3 rumor. It’s just setting the record straight!
E3 has been tamer this year. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing happening there.
Gamasutra has an interview with Frank Pearce, founding member and senior vice president of product development for Blizzard.
Here a bit from the interview:
“Our global headcount is 2,700,” said Pearce, “And most of that is customer service for World of Warcraft! In terms of development staff it’s probably around 350. World of Warcraft is about 135 people, 40 for Starcraft II, 40 for team 3, our cinematics team is about 85 guys. Then there’s sound and Q/A and that sort of thing.”
When pressed for details regarding the new project, Pearce was cagey. “Team 3 is working on something really awesome. I can’t give you any hints, but it’s totally awesome.”
All attempts to extract additional information were understandably met with looks of shock and horror from Blizzard’s director of global public relations, who also attended the meeting.
With Blizzcon just a few days away, I wonder if Blizzard are warming up to a formal announcement of this mysterious third project.
E3 has been tamer this year. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing happening there.
Gamasutra has an interview with Frank Pearce, founding member and senior vice president of product development for Blizzard.
Here a bit from the interview:
“Our global headcount is 2,700,” said Pearce, “And most of that is customer service for World of Warcraft! In terms of development staff it’s probably around 350. World of Warcraft is about 135 people, 40 for Starcraft II, 40 for team 3, our cinematics team is about 85 guys. Then there’s sound and Q/A and that sort of thing.”
When pressed for details regarding the new project, Pearce was cagey. “Team 3 is working on something really awesome. I can’t give you any hints, but it’s totally awesome.”
All attempts to extract additional information were understandably met with looks of shock and horror from Blizzard’s director of global public relations, who also attended the meeting.
With Blizzcon just a few days away, I wonder if Blizzard are warming up to a formal announcement of this mysterious third project.
I’ve heard many arguments that it’s not REALLY new content as Blizzard have just taken a few bosses and made their uber versions. For example, they’ve used Andariel’s model to create Lilith who shares very similar spells and effects.
That is one way to look at it. However, lets turn to the year(s) preceding World of Warcraft’s launch. Blizzard created a special “custom” campaign (The Founding of Durotar) for Warcraft III that used the game engine BUT simulated WoW in terms of gameplay. The quest structure, the items (epic, legendary, etc), even the levelling.
Come to think of it, I might have enjoyed the campaign MORE than I have enjoyed WoW. You could control three heroes plus summoned creatures and henchmen, the quests made sense (i.e. not repetitive), and the items were pretty powerful.
That’s not my point though. My point is that what Blizzard has done with patch 1.11 is test the realms for the style of gameplay that their next-gen MMO (lets call it Diablo III: Heaven and Hell) will feature.
This looks a long shot now but come back in a year and we’ll see. I definitely think Blizzard’s next-gen MMO should feature top SOLO content in addition to raid content.
I do expect to kill Diablo even as a casual SOLO player. Surviving the fight might be a 10% chance and loot might be just a few greens but I’d like to see Diablo go down. Amen.
