Slashdot Mirror
Julian Love, Lead Technical Artist for Diablo 3
Slashdot: Could you explain your role on the Diablo 3 team?
Julian Love: A lot of people don’t know what a lead technical artist does, or even a technical artist. So, the easiest way to understand it is: all the things that your player does in the game, all the skills that they have, have visuals attached to them, usually done with special effects. That’s really the focus of what my team does that you can see in-game. We are very tightly coupled with the design team to help them visualize and even come up with a lot of the player skills – what they are and what they do.
Slashdot: One thing I noticed while playing the demo was that the skill runes modify the art on the abilities quite a bit. That seems like a lot of work.
Julian Love: You bet. It is a lot of work, and it wasn’t our original intention to do that, because we were thinking, “That’s a lot of skills.. .and that’s a lot of runes..how is that even going to be possible?” So, initially we thought, “Well, we’ll just do some things that aren’t so visual.” But, what we found was that they felt kind of broken. We noticed that the players would pick up the game and the places where we had done those kinds of graphical changes, they would play those skills over every other one that didn’t do it. It was clear that if we’re going to have this system, we’re going to have to commit to making graphical changes on everything, so you don’t have this case where people are shying away from a skill simply because it felt unsatisfying.
Slashdot: How much extra work is that for you in the art department?
Julian Love: I can tell you it’s at least five times as much extra work. Sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s less. What we’re really shooting for is enough graphical change that the skill doesn’t feel broken and that it contributes strongly to the feel of customizing your character. That’s the other key that we hit on. This is a way for us to bring another level of customization to characters that I don’t think people necessarily think about. The tendency is to think about things like “How come I can’t change his skin color,” or “how come I can’t give him tattoos?” And in our game, your character is this big (holds fingers a few inches apart). It’s not very large on screen. So, those kinds of things don’t have a lot of utility or value. Your character is covered in armor, what good is a tattoo?
But your skills are big and powerful and cover a lot of the screen, so being able to customize those is something that will really have a lot of impact for player customization. So, for that we looked up and just said we’re going to have to commit. We’re going to have to find ways to do it. Sometimes it’ll be a little easier, and sometimes, in the case of things like Hydra, where we’re literally making different hydras, or in the case of, say, Plague of Toads, where we’re making totally different kinds of toads, those are going to be a little harder. But, it’s going to be worth it as long as it’s fun.
Slashdot: Yeah. I was playing a Witch Doctor, and I used the spell that summons a zombie for you, and I got a rune that turned it into a swarm of bears. We got a real kick out of that.
Julian Love: Yeah! Zombie Bears! It’s kind of funny, that’s one of the skills that came up – the way we work is that we sit down and throw a lot of crazy ideas out, and sometimes it’s a little scary, throwing an idea that you think “I’m not sure how the group will react. This is kind of wacky.” And I remember sitting in the group and they were saying, “What are we going to do? We need something else.” And I said, “I’m not even sure why this works, but I’m just going to say it: Zombie Bears!” And everybody went, “Yes!” And that was it. Look at the way to it feels to play that skill in the game – it just sounds fun, right?
Slashdot: Definitely. Now that you can modify these skills so heavily, it seems like you can go through the game as, say, a Wizard, and play it one way, and then play it through again as a Wizard and have a completely different experience.
Julian Love: Absolutely. The character customization is one part of it, but another really important part is replayability. The fact that you can go back and re-explore your class, explore other classes. As limited as Diablo 2 was compared to Diablo 3, you still have people playing it ten years later. You have a hundred thousand people online sometimes, playing Diablo 2. So, replayability is a big, important factor, and skill runes definitely contribute to that by providing so many more build possibilities for people to keep exploring.
Slashdot: Regarding the new PvP system, are there going to more game types than just small teams facing off?
Julian Love: We don’t have any plans right now that we’re announcing for different types of games. It’s an idea we’re a fan of. We think that there are some things we might be able to do with it, but right now we’re primarily focused on bringing Battle Arenas to the game.
Slashdot: How has that affected the way you’re implementing PvP in the rest of the game.
Julian Love: The only place we’re actually implementing PvP is in the Battle Arena structure. That’s a key point. By bringing PvP out of the PvE game and giving it its own space, we’re providing a more structured and fun PvP experience. We can do things there that were much harder to deliver, like team play. It was really hard to do meaningful team play in Diablo 2. Not that some players didn’t find a way to impart that structure. It’s just a lot easier when it’s already there. Especially when you start to bring in Battle.net and being able to do much fairer matches. Really, if you think about the Diablo 2 experience, it’s much more about ganking people who are unsuspecting. People didn’t fight each other unless they thought they could win. It really wasn’t what I would call fun for everyone.
But by bringing it out and giving it its own space, you have a better chance of injecting that fun into the PvP experience. Now, at the same time, we’re really improving what most people consider the PvE experience, especially for those people who weren’t interested in being ganked unfairly. Nobody liked to take a waypoint into a zone and show up dead, and have no idea what happened, only to find out that somebody killed them before they loaded. When you do enough of that, you start chasing people out of those games, and eventually out of Diablo 2 itself. That’s not something we want to provide.
Slashdot: When a new player logs into Diablo 3 and sees the PvP options, what is your goal for what they’re encouraged to try.
Julian Love: Our goal is first to communicate that it’s going to be a fun experience. We’ve done it as short, cycled rounds, and one of the reasons we’ve done that is so when you do die –because if you engage in PvP, you’re going to get killed, right? – but nobody likes to stand around dead for too long, watching all their buddies have fun. So, shortening the rounds gives you a chance to come back and get some revenge before the rounds are up. A part of the reasoning behind that is to make sure people are having fun; to get over the intimidation factor with PvP. “Oh, I don’t want to do it, I don’t want to die!” Well, you die in PvE, right? We want to communicate that this is easy, engaging, and can really be a lot of fun.
Slashdot: Is that where you’re going with skill-matching over Battle.net, to make sure beginners play against beginners?
Julian Love: We’ll have a system very similar to how StarCraft works in terms of trying to match people up fairly. Part of the reason is to avoid people saying, “I’m going to go get my level 80.” “Well, I’m going to go get my level 90.” That kind of thing happened in Diablo 2 where people would just one-up each other to the point where it was a fair fight, at which point everybody left because nobody wants to do that. It’s a lot more fun when everybody is playing together and they are much more on the same level.
Slashdot: It was mentioned at the panel that there would be things like achievements and vanity rewards for PvP. Is that something that will carry over to the PvE game as well?
Julian Love: There will be achievements and vanity rewards for sure in the PvE game. I don’t think we have any plans for how much or what those things are. It’s still a work in progress.
Slashdot: Is there going to be a beta test?
Julian Love: There will be a closed beta. We don’t have an announcement about when that will be. I don’t think we have any specific announcements yet about what you’re going to be able to do in the closed beta.
Slashdot: Is that something you’re more hesitant to put in front of players? Would you rather keep things under wraps?
Julian Love: No, no. Well, there are some things we have to keep under wraps. Story. Diablo 3 is going to be a lot about story. It’s going to have a much deeper story, a much more compelling story, a story you’re much more engaged in. Obviously, there are whole parts of the story we don’t want to reveal. So we’re going to want to be careful about exposing the story to everybody and spoiling the experience. But at the same time, putting the game in front of people and getting feedback is a core part how we go about making games. That’s why there’s a playable build here at Blizzcon. So that we can get it in front of people and find out what works. In fact I was just down on the show floor earlier today, watching people play the game, and I noticed a number of things that made me say, “You know what, we’re got to go back to the office and tweak that!” There’s a few things that aren’t quite right. And the things I’ve noticed today? You know, I’ve been watching this game played at the office for the last year, and the things I saw today aren’t things I’ve seen before. So, there's huge value in having people outside of the office play the game.
Slashdot: Can you give us an example of one of those situations?
Julian Love: I saw a case where somebody hadn’t quite figured out how to get their skills on the left and right mouse button. It was just one person, but I think there’s something to that – people running around without using their skills. I think we’re going to take a look at that. We never really stop iterating on the UI for the game, and I think there’s something more we can do to get it just perfect. So that we don’t have what I would maybe call “fail cases.” We want to make sure that everybody would get it.
Slashdot: So far we’ve seen some very constrained dungeons – a tomb, a fiery dungeon – are we going to see more of the wide-open spaces that were common in Diablo 3?
Julian Love: Absolutely. Last Blizzcon we primarily showed an outdoor, open-space area – the desert – and this year there was a desire to give players something a little bit different. At the same time, we wanted to deliver something that was in line with the development process for the game, and not something that was pulled out and built separately for the show. Even last year’s [build], that’s still content we’re using for the game, but there was more putting it together for the show. This year, we really just wanted to take some section of the game, exactly as it is, put it in front of everybody, and see how it works.
Slashdot: Characters. From a fan perspective, it seems like a very long time between the announcements of, say, the Wizard, the Monk, and the Demon Hunter. Can you explain the timeline of what goes into developing these classes?
Julian Love: We don’t have a fixed timeline. But here’s what happens: We always start out with some really basic goals for a class. How they’re supposed to feel, broad parameters, how they feel thematically, and how they should feel gameplay-wise. For instance, with the Demon Hunter, we wanted a ranged class. But we wrestled with it, early on, about what the thematics would be. And by that I mean the beginning of the Diablo 3 project. That’s how far back the Demon Hunter goes. But we decided at some point to just put it on ice, and that’s a thing we do often. Sometimes you can just work your piece of clay to the point where you don’t know what it’s supposed to be anymore. So the best thing you can do is not to cut it, but to put it on ice for a while. Let it sit, let it percolate. It gives us the space to come back later.
Then, suddenly, it might make a lot more sense. You get this moment of clarity for the class. This has happened to just about every class in some way, shape, or form. Early on with the Barbarian, we had the same kind of thing happen, where we were really trying to push the physicality to the point where we were ignoring ways we could make him more crazy. There was this moment, after getting some space from it, where we were said it was alright to start giving him some of this god-power, through the Ancients. We did the same thing with the Demon Hunter. “You know what would really make this ranged class work is if we underscore the thematic elements going on in the storyline with the incoming demon invasion.” It let us create this bounty hunter-type class with a really dark, gothic vibe, which really suits our world well. It gave us a new feel, a character we didn’t have at that point. It filled the need for a ranged class, giving them the pistol crossbows to shake things up. We thought, “You know what, that just all works.” So what was a struggle before suddenly becomes crystal clear. And that takes time!
was anyone not sold on the importance of individuals who CAN provide feedback if you wish to receive it?
In the cinematic introduction, the demon hunter looks like Kasumi from the Mass Effect 2 Stolen Memories DLC.
I don't have to click NEARLY enough times for this to be really about Diablo.
...but Blizzard knows what we are waiting for: a release date. Get on that, Bliz!
Living With a Nerd
After playing through D2 again last week, D3 looks pretty weak. I'm sure the eyecandy-ravers will think it's God's gift, however.
I know I can only truly speak for myself, but I've spoken with lots of other people who at least agree with me to my face regarding Blizzard and their recent bullshit tactics. Whether they vote with their wallets once the game is released, I dunno. What I do know is that I don't give Blizzard money any more. Removing LAN play killed their games for me. I haven't bought Starcraft II, and I won't be buying Diablo III either. I would've had both these titles preordered if they had stuck to their old philosophy of supporting the gamers who buy their products. Now instead we have forced online connectivity shoved down our throats, a single game split into 3 different versions for the sake of exploiting the customer, bullshit bans over cheating in SINGLE PLAYER MODE which WOULDN'T EVEN BE POSSIBLE IF IT WEREN'T FOR THE FIRST OFFENSE ON THIS LIST...gah, fuck 'em. I'm getting so pissed just talking about it that it isn't worth it any more.
If someone wanted to post an interview THAT MATTERS on a site for STUFF THAT MATTERS, why not get in someone's face and ask the hard questions about why the company seems hell-bent on alienating the people who put them on the map in the first place?
...but Blizzard knows what we are waiting for: a release date. Get on that, Bliz!
You can't have a release date until you've had an open beta. Open betas add an unknown amount of time to a project. Or in other words, its not "done" until the open beta shakes out the balance problems that only tens of thousands of external testers can expose.
Seriously, if someone wanted to post an interview THAT MATTERS on this site about STUFF THAT MATTERS, why not get in someone's face at Blizzcon and ask the hard questions about why Blizzard is alienating the core base of fans that put them on the map? Why not try to pin someone down about the lack of LAN play in Starcraft II or Diablo III? How about the BS they're pulling in splitting Starcraft II into 3 different games? How about the forced Battle.net usage, and the fact that they're using that information to ban people from cheating in SINGLE PLAYER games?
You can say these issues have been addressed all you want, but the fact is, no one at Blizzard has REALLY addressed any of these questions.
Blizzard doesn't get any of my money any more. Borderlands is a better Diablo III than anything we'll get from Blizzard.
Strange, some acoustic guitar riff keeps repeating in my mind ... it seems very familiar.
Anyone else think Julian Love is a really cool name? If only he were had a Ph.D. in the study of calendars.
Q.E.D.
Let's see an open beta where a fixed-size player pool gets rotated every 2 weeks or so - this will likely both increase the amount of play time each tester will put in given the constraints, and allow for the technical team to not have the servers crumble under the weight of a full-on stress test. You could then cycle tester pools according to location in the world, or according to any other demographic statistic you choose, all while allowing more people (and thus more points of view) to test the game!
Ok, so I'm dreaming in technicolor, but... but... please?
Slashdot: So far we’ve seen some very constrained dungeons – a tomb, a fiery dungeon – are we going to see more of the wide-open spaces that were common in Diablo 3?
:O
Do I get a prize?
Diablo, Jan '97 -> Diablo 2, June '00 -> Torchlight, Oct '09 -> Torchlight 2, '11 -> Torchlight MMO, '13 -> Diablo 3, '15+
I remember when the closed beta of WoW came out and I got in on that. It was fantastic.
The time between that and the open wasn't that long... though I was still in my 20's when I started. I'VE WASTED HOW MANY YEARS OF MY LIFE NOW????
I went to battle M.C. Escher, but drew a blank.
I know I can only truly speak for myself, but I've spoken with lots of other people who at least agree with me to my face regarding Blizzard and their recent bullshit tactics. Whether they vote with their wallets once the game is released, I dunno ...
Yes you do. You know they will buy. The truth is that there are many testimonials like yours right before every every one of Blizzard's "recent" best sellers. This is becoming a slashdot tradition. Long threads extolling the righteousness of a ban or boycott before external beta testing. Followed by long threads explaining that trying the beta is OK since no money goes to Blizzard and that the game looks pretty awesome. Which in turn is followed by long threads explaining how this is the greatest game ever after it is finally released, and that the authorization and anti-cheat stuff isn't that bad and if it does curtail cheating its probably a net positive. This slashdot tradition then ends with a brief article announcing some new industry sales record has been broken by the game. ;-)
As in, how badly will Blizzard treat its customer base with this game? We've already watched them destroy the Starcraft franchise with their heavy-handed tactics... Will the Diablo franchise get a similar treatment?
I, for one, will be waiting to see if D3 has LAN play, and whether or not cheating in the single player game gets you banned from playing single-player, and whether the price will be anywhere near reasonable. To be honest, with all the crap they pulled with SC2, I'm not willing to put out more than about US$20 for any product with the Blizzard name on it at this point. I'm sure not going to spend $60 (multiple times, no less) to support these shenanigans.
To be honest, I didn't even read this "article", because merely seeing Blizzard's name in the title pissed me off.
I'd like to point out that my wife and I will still whip out D2, make new toons, and go off to kill Andariel... it's still a fun way to waste a couple hours, even more than a decade since its release.
I'd like to point out that I have several copies of Starcraft, that I keep expressly for the purpose of playing at LAN parties. Owning multiple copies makes it easy to (without even patching!) get my ass kicked by my buddies (I suck at multiplayer, and mostly play single-player (campaign) mode, where I can figure out how to outsmart the AI, and then min-max for greater glory).
I'd like to point out that I can still lay my hands on my original Diablo disks, and still dust them off occasionally to run around smashing goblins and demons in a 6-hour dungeon crawling spree on a random Saturday. I own the Hellfire expansion, as well.
In 10 years, will we still be able to play SC2 or D3, or will the product lines have been EOL'd, with the activation servers offline? When I buy a game, I expect to be able to play it indefinitely. Being shut down due to the activation server for an "obsolete" product being offline is not something I'm willing to drop $50-$60 on. Want to "rent" me a game? Charge something that feels more like a rental fee. $10 sounds about right. Want to charge me to "purchase" a game? Make sure it will work without internet access, without any interaction from the corporate overseers. Show me you have no qualms about removing my ability to use the product I actually paid for, and you push me one step closer to the pirates - after all, I *paid* for the product - it's mine. If I can't play the game I paid for, then I'm much more likely to steal the next one.
I can understand WoW being pay-to-play - the game is online, after all, and a lot of the fun involved is simply the idea of getting together with a couple dozen of your best friends, and smashing down a dungeon. On the other hand, I'd love to be able to play without having to be online... a lot of the content is single-player PvE stuff, and even after 4 years, I haven't seen anywhere near all the content. I'm not saying I want to solo the whole thing, but having the option would be a nice touch. Where will all our max-level toons be, when Blizzard gets tired of hosting 15 million players?
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Can anyone tell me of any alternatives to Diablo/Blizzard games?
I mean I LOVE Diablo, but the original team split some 6 or 7 years ago and there have been plenty of knockoffs, but can anyone tell me about a recent game that has such a great play/replayability?
I went to battle M.C. Escher, but drew a blank.
Does anyone know if I can play "single player" local to my computer, or is there going to be more of the same Starcraft type DRM where you have be connected to the internet(s) all the time? I was looking forward to Diablo 3 for many years now, and after hearing about the Starcraft DRM, I am very very very disappointed that I will not support this game.
We all want to know why they cripple their software with DRM schemes that disable singler player modding.
and taking a pissy attitude towards them over how they choose to enforce the intellectual rights and protect their properties does not affect those of us who buy the games to play them. We don't have false bravdo by thumping our chests on message boards. Some of us spend our efforts where it actually matters, like helping out at MUST ministries, doing the quarterly (it seems like more) Habitat for Humanity, and donating time and other monies to charities. Hell I even spend time helping a friend get elected to our county board.
Your own tone suggest you left rational behind. Blizzard makes games, that is all I see them for. Just like I see Hollywood actors for nothing more than the roles they play. I certainly am not affected by their attempts to curb cheating, if not curb the mentality that one should be allowed to cheat whenever possible as if they are somehow entitled to do so.
Look, this type of stuff is crap. Go expend your time and angst doing something which helps people who need the help. Mod me down to hell, I really don't care, there are far too many losers who "take up causes on message boards" because it lets them feel as if they belong, or are oppressed somehow, but in the end they don't have to do something or expend any real effort. I really don't know why sites like /. attract the sort or mod them as if its honorable or such, man against evil corporation? In the end no one will remember, help serve food, see smiles on people's faces when you help them, now there is something to direct your energy too.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
It seems like the skill runes idea was lifted straight from their competitor Path of Exile. Correct me if this is something they announced months ago. It is a good idea though, expanding the sphere of possible builds is always worthwhile.
what I've seen with your eyes.
damaged by dogma
It's not a joke, you just missed my point.
By a mile.
(my old SC license validated just fine recently on the new bnet)
Sure, sure... but if you have the physical disks, with the original case (for the cd-key), then you have an install method that doesn't require access to the internet. This is tons of fun when you're, for instance, in a hotel room where the wifi service works maybe 10% of the time, or out camping in the middle of nowhere and it starts raining.
If you have two disks, you and a friend can play together, with nothing more than a crossover cable between your 10-year-old laptops, or using wifi ad hoc on newer systems. No internet, no download, no activation, no bullshit.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
It was nonsense published by a website that sold hacks and cheats, and reported on other gaming news sites. When you play in singleplayer you are logged into Battlenet for achievements, therefore by using third-party cheats in singleplayer you are unlocking achievements on your multiplayer account. Starcraft 2 HAS AN OFFLINE MODE, you click "Play as Guest" from the login screen, instead of logging into Battlenet. Blizzard are simply banning Battlenet accounts, which are they perfectly entitled to do, NOT stopping people from playing singleplayer. Starcraft 2 also has cheat codes, which disable achievements, such as godmode, unlimited minerals, instant build etc.
Because when Diablo3 comes out I will buy a pc Just for it! Even mod the case! Make it all evil ! FUN! There goes 1000$!