I was curious about death in Diablo3. As we know this is a fast paced hack and slash game, you WILL die once in a while (more often than you think)
Blizzard will make the monsters harder than Diablo II because they reduced the numbers a bit. So, we all know that in D2 when you die you respawn in town and have to travel back to your body to collect your weapons and armor.

Ok, what about Diablo3 ?
Here is what Bashiok had to say about the death system:

Before I get in to what we are doing let me go over some things we want to avoid with a death mechanic.

We want to separate being in town and being out on a quest/adventure/dungeon as much as possible. Leaving the safety of a town should not be a decision you take lightly. We don’t want to remove the sense of suspense and danger by making town something you’re always going back to pretty much whenever you like. The intent is to create a greater separation from being in town, and not, and to make your time away from town a lot more tense.

On that same note we also don’t want to remove the player from the action. Throwing them back to town for every death really breaks up the action, and not in a fun, interesting, or necessary way.

So, with these things in mind we’ve found that a check point system works really well. Throughout your adventures, and generally at the ends of each “floor” of a dungeon your character is saved to a checkpoint. When you die you’re dropped back at the last checkpoint with a small amount of health, and the rest regenerates slowly. It’s obviously a very forgiving system as it is. It’s just too early to put a ton of thought in to what penalties there should be, if any, added on top of it.
Regardless, potential penalties aside, this is the death mechanic we’re currently using and it’s working really well so far.

I totally agree with him, DEATH must mean something in Diablo III. Also the city must play an important role in the game. I agree with the checkpoint system, it will enhance the game in more ways than i can imagine. Blizzard should introduce a BIG penalty in death so that we don’t atack everything on the map. As they said before Diablo 3 will be more tactical than D2, no more brainless clicking to finish the game.

I love that they want to insert the sense of fear outside the city/town, this was ignored in Diablo2, there were only a few places in the entire game where you were actually scared.

Bring on the checkpoint system and let’s start slaughtering!

Diablo 3 is starting to shape up real nice from what i can tell.

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I like to see some Shrines and Wells in Diablo3, they were a great feature in D2. Specially for health and mana.
Also i would like to see different shrines, with special abilities (like a temporary skill maybe ?)

The Official Game Developers have already confirmed (through Jay) that the wells will be in DiabloIII to help the player in boss fights. I think it is a great addition it certainly fixes the lack of health and mana potions.

Each D3 boss will have a couple of wells near by to help the player

Also Shrines and Wells would bring tactics to the table, the player would have to plan each attack. I personally like the way D3 is going in development.

Blizzard needs to think about the Shrines, they can be very interesting in the game, only one request though. Don’t make the same mistake as Diablo2 where almost 60% of the shrines were useless at higher levels.

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A great Wallpaper featuring the City of Ureh

: Download :

2650×1600 V1 & V2 – 1920×1200 – 1680×1050 – 1600×1200 – 1280×1024 – 1024×768

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What do you think about RPG games that have item weight ? Am i right by saying that this actually slows down the gameplay ?

There is no doubt about it, item weight is a fast gameplay killer, it is one more thing to distract you from playing the game. Diablo 3 doesn’t need this, Diablo 3 must be a fast paced game. It is enough we have to deal with the size factor, our inventory gets full rather fast in D2 from the amount of items that are dropped by monsters, weight must not come into picture.

Diablo III is an action RPG and item weight would bring the Micro Management factor to a new undesirable level.

Here is what the official Blizzard poster Bashiok had to say about this:

A weight system is simply a different approach to inventory restrictions, and it’s actually fairly similar to a grid based system except that weight systems are generally augmented by a character stat instead of being item based upgrades.

The main issue with these systems as they relate to Diablo III is they add an additional value to items. That secondary value works to complicate and thus slow down the inventory management of a player, drawing their attention away from the action, which is of course the main focus for us with Diablo III.

I’ve played a few RPGs with weight systems, and they’re among my favorite games of all time, but it’s a case of choosing which systems works best for each game.

Some fans say that by NOT inserting the weight system the game will not be complex, that it will be focused on action-violence only (what’s wrong with that?) But it is not the case in Diablo3 as you can see below:

Well there’s still the depth and complexity of item/stat utilization, building out your character, exploration, increased emphasis on story and lore, etc. but aside from those sort of obvious points, no I’m not worried. There are some big things we haven’t revealed yet.

I simply don’t want to see the weight factor in this game, true it was great on other RPG’s but i don’t think it is suited for DIII

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It has been confirmed, Diablo 3 will not have guns as drop items. There are rumors online about muskets and gun powder appearing in this game but it is NOT true.

We all know the interview that issued the idea that we (the fans) will hate the new character class in Diablo3, but let’s get real. Guns are not an option in D3

I just hate when people spread dumb rumors like this, i know it is a long wait for the release of Diablo3 but we need to remain calm.

Here is the official confirmation from Bashiok:

Well, you have to realize that it’s been 20
years, and in technological terms that can be a very long time. We’re
trying to create a world that’s not static, its filled out, and with
that it’s an advancing world. With that amount of time, and also the
loss of the Arreat Summit much of the remaining barbarian culture has
focused on… nah I’m just kidding, there aren’t any guns.

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Do you remember the spell books from Diablo1? You could actually learn spells and skills like that and make your character “unique”. Well, some diablo fans want to see that system in Diablo III

Not the major skills of course, but something very rare and hard to get. But how would this impact the gameplay of D3 ? How could the classes remain unique if people can learn spells via books? We fear that this will bring the game down, and i personally consider that it is not a very good idea.

I am sure that all DIII fans want a well balanced game, we don’t want the possibility to trick the game, we want it hard and hardcore

This idea is shattered by Bashiok in a forum post:

That came back in Diablo II too eventually in
the form of rune words, and I don’t think it really worked out too well
in the end. I do think it actually could be designed and implemented
properly; balanced, etc. but…



For me the more important question though is what impact does it
have on the class you’re playing and also our knowledge of the Diablo
world? Is a class nothing more than someone who read from a book, or is
holding a specific item? No, they’re very specific and very iconic
figures (heroes even) from very distinct styles and backgrounds. The
characters we play are these concentrated images of their cultures,
beliefs, etc. Everything they do resembles who they are and where
they’re from, and what does it mean to then piecemeal that out to any
one who just happens to throw a couple runes in to an item.



It worked better in Diablo (1) I think. Conceptually it was a bit
easier to digest just because of the basic pen and paper underpinnings,
and the heroes were far more generic. It was also far less obtrusive.



In Diablo II though, for me anyway, it always undermined the
uniqueness of playing a specific class, and also what it meant to be
that character. Aside from everything else it caused.

As you can see, a system that worked in Diablo 1 almost brought down Diablo 2. I like the way the game looks now, skills should be learned only via the skill tree. This will make it fair for everybody.
Some think that the SpellBooks would bring a high level of replayability to the game because durring the gameplay you can take alternate paths. It does sound good but only if it is made balanced (like everything in Diablo3).
Blizzard must think twice before creating this feature.

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