Development on Diablo III began some time in 2005 when Blizzard North was still in operation. The original artistic design differed from that shown at Blizzard Worldwide Invitational 2008 demonstration, and had undergone three revisions before reaching the standards felt necessary by the team behind Diablo III. The development teams comprise fifty people. Most of the game mechanics and physics are complete and undergoing minor revisions. Most of the current and remaining development will focus on adding game content.
The game takes place in Sanctuary, the dark fantasy world of the Diablo series. This world was saved twenty years prior by a handful of unnamed heroes in Diablo II. Warriors that survived the onslaught of the armies of the Burning Hells have gone mad from their ordeals, and it is up to a new generation of heroes to face the forces of evil threatening the world of Sanctuary. Players will have the opportunity to explore familiar settings such as Tristram. Two of five classes have been unveiled so far: Barbarian and Witch Doctor. Players may choose gender for each class, a change from the fixed class genders in the previous two games.
With different types of monsters on hand, it's fortunate that the character classes in Diablo 3 will be just as epically powerful as you remember. The Barbarian is still a melee specialist (though not without his specialized ranged attacks). The Barbarian's skills will be familiar to Diablo II fans--we saw the whirlwind in effect, sweeping through scores of enemies--but he’ll have some other tricks up his sleeves (that is, if he wore sleeves), including the sweep, which can blast multiple enemies around him. During the on-stage demo, the Barbarian managed to take down a stone wall on a group of zombies, pointing to more interactive environments throughout the gameplay. While environments won't be fully destructible, you can look forward to many instances, such as this one, where you can use the environment to your advantage, with a certain amount of real physics involved in the destruction.
The Witch Doctor will have control over disease, can summon pets, and can even control the minds of his or her enemies. We saw a few examples of these different approaches in the game demo: Locust swarm is a spell that summons a nasty horde of flying locusts that can overwhelm an opponent. Better yet, the locusts will automatically spawn to attack additional enemies in the area. We saw one pet in use too; the mongrel. This pet can attack enemies and can be buffed with other Witch Doctor spells; during the demo, the player cast locust swarm on his mongrel, giving the pet an attack bonus. We also briefly saw the horrify spell, which causes enemies to temporarily flee in terror. By far, his coolest ability was the wall of zombie, which was truly terrifying. If you've seen a wall of fire or ice in a game before, you probably have a pretty good idea of what this skill involves.
In Diablo III, potions will still play a part of the action but their importance has been downplayed, thanks to a couple of changes. The first are health globes, which drop off defeated enemies and will serve to boost the health of your character, as well as those around you if you're playing co-operatively. As the developers put it, the idea of enemies dropping health is one that will keep the player moving forward in the game, as opposed to trying to avoid combat. In addition, a new skill toolbar, similar in location to the old potion belt in Diablo II, will make your skills that much more accessible, easily allowing you to switch between skills on the fly. You’ll even be able to swap skills quickly using the roller on your mouse for even more ease of use. The result is a game you’ll likely be able to play almost completely with your mouse; no more hunting for skills using the F key on your keyboard. Here's one more important addition regarding cooperative play: When a character picks up a health globe, any surrounding allies also benefit from that health globe, which seems like it will encourage players to stick together when hacking and slashing their way throughout the game. To our ears, it also makes it sound like practically any class will be able to tank effectively (as long as someone is picking up the health globes and standing nearby), but we'll have to see how it plays out as the game develops.
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