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Diablo 3 Hands-On
The demo started me off at with a level 9 character and dropped me into a dungeon, offering up two objectives: fight my way through and, as a bonus, find and destroy a particular boss. From the start, it had a very familiar feel. I took a few steps down the hall and got rushed by a group of monsters, which I quickly mowed down by mashing the buttons on my mouse. It's Diablo, alright. Here I paused to actually read my abilities and see how the UI worked. If you've followed along with the game's development at all, you're probably aware of the fact that the Diablo 2 potion belt is gone. The 1-5 keys are now used to activate skills displayed on an action bar at the bottom of the screen. The right and left mouse buttons also activate skills (ostensibly the most-used ones), and pressing tab will swap back and forth between two skills bound to the right mouse button. Subtract one of those slots for health potions and you've got seven easily-accessible skills.
Skills:
Of course, I didn't get that many to start; instead, they're doled out as a character levels up, increasing the complexity of combat slowly but steadily. Blizzard has done away with the talent-trees of old, so picking skills is a lot tougher. Instead, every few levels a new skill slot unlocks, and you get to pick an actual activated ability that you'll immediately start using to kill monsters. On the levels in between the unlocks, you can power up one of your existing skills. All of the passive, math-y talents that were prevalent in Diablo 2 are dealt with through a different system, called Traits. Traits are a wide variety of passive bonuses that you get to spend points in every couple levels — things like boosting a particular stat, or increasing the amount of gold monsters drop. They're pretty straight-forward — not that exciting, but a nice, consistent way to make your character stronger in some way.
As it happens, attaining level 10 unlocks a skill slot (the fourth), so after spending a little time wading through the demonic hordes inhabiting the dungeon, I leveled up and tried to make a decision. It was pretty difficult to choose. There are a lot of fun-sounding or powerful-sounding skills, and you're just not able to get all of them. One of Blizzard's mantras of late has been about having the player make meaningful decisions, and this certainly qualified. They've stated in the past that some form of respec will be added to the game. They haven't ironed out the details, but they don't want it to be trivial. If I hadn't had a limited amount of time, I would have spent quite a while pondering which skill to take. It would have been nice to have some sort of preview, or a minute-long grace period to swap to something else. But it definitely created a feeling that there were more good options I'd be able to get in later levels.
I'll get to the individual classes and their skills in a moment, but one more feature that needs to be introduced is the Skill Rune system. This is a concept Blizzard has been playing with for a while, and last year it was in the midst of a redesign, so we didn't get to try it out. It works like this: each skill in your spellbook has one slot to which you can add a Skill Rune. The Rune then modifies how the skill works. It's somewhat similar to gem sockets in items. There are five different colors of runes, and each color will modify the skill in a different way. Runes have seven ranks, which modify how powerful the effect is. One example they talked about was the Wizard skill Magic Missile. Unaltered, it's just what it sounds like — launching an arcane projectile at a monster. With a rank 1 Indigo rune, the skill shoots an extra missile. With a rank 7 Indigo rune, it shoots seven extra missiles. I'll be blunt: Skill Runes are pretty awesome.
Classes:
The first class I tried out was the Witch Doctor. It's a caster class with voodoo- and necromancer-style magic. My main ranged attack was Poison Dart, which did some damage over time to monsters I hit. Adding a rune, it changed to a fire dart, which did more up-front damage at the expense of the DoT. I also had a skill that summoned pets to help me fight -- up to three Zombie Dogs at one time. They were actually powerful enough that I eventually let them die so I would have more to do. Runes affected them differently — one rune gave them a chance to drop a health orb when they died. Others modified how they did damage. The AI was pretty smart about having them attack the groups I wanted them to, and not go charging off on their own.
The skill I chose when I hit level 10 was Firebats. It functions similarly to the Inferno spell in Diablo 2, only instead of projecting a cone of flame in front of me, it projected a cone of flaming bats. The first Skill Rune I looked at extended the spell's range, trading off damage to do so. That was a bit underwhelming, since I already had ranged attacks, so I went with a different rune that turned the cone into a whirlwind of flaming bats that surrounded me. Another rune added a life-drain effect. It was tempting, but the whirlwind looked too cool to pass up. Finally, the skill that sold me on the Skill Rune system was Zombie Charger, a spell that summoned a zombie, who would shamble a few steps forward and then spray poison in the immediate vicinity. It was a solid, short-range attack. Fortunately, I lucked into a rune that modified the spell to summon a group of zombie bears that charged forward and trampled whatever was in their path. The buddy I was playing with happened to get a rune at the same time that made his Wizard's basic lightning spell change into a massive, conical spray of electricity, and we couldn't help but laugh as we used our new-found power to demolish groups of monsters.
The next class I tried was the recently revealed Demon Hunter. The class mixes ranges weapons with gadgets and dark magic for its offensive power. It bears similarities to both the Amazon and the Assassin from Diablo 2, but feels distinctly different to play. My main nuke, when I started out, was called Entangling Shot. It would do some damage and slow the monsters it hit, and then chain to other nearby monsters. Using Entangling Shot, it was quite easy to control entire groups of monsters. This was supplemented by a skill called Bola Shot, which would send a glowing bola out to wrap itself around the neck of a monster, exploding a few seconds later. It supplemented the slow effect of Entangling Shot nicely; by alternating between the two skills, I could drop big damage while keeping anything from reaching me. The Demon Hunter also had Vault, a movement skill that makes you leap forward through the shadows. It's a good way to get range — perhaps too good.
When I reached level 10, there were some interesting choices for new skills — a Fan of Knives provided area-of-effect damage in a circle around the Demon Hunter; Molten Arrow sends a blast of fire through monsters; Multi-Shot sends a conical rain of arrows that looks more like something out of 300 than the equivalent Amazon skill in Diablo 2. But I ended up choosing Grenades. The Demon Hunter tosses three grenades at the feet of her target, and they explode for huge damage. The cool thing about this skill is that you can bounce the grenades off walls, so you can blow up things around corners or in the back of a group that's rushing you. Unfortunately, I didn't get to try any runes with these skills. Overall, the Demon Hunter felt a lot more dynamic and... percussive than an Amazon.
I got a chance to tinker around with the Barbarian as well. This class uses a different resource system — fury is generated by certain attacks, and is then spent on other (generally more powerful) attacks. It certainly played differently than the range classes. Wading into groups and Cleaving away was standard operating procedure. I enjoyed this class less than the others, mainly due to the fact that fury generation seemed fairly slow, and my skills weren't that focused on damage. One ability, Revenge, was reactive, only becoming available occasionally during a pitched battle. At level 10, I picked up a skill that made him leap into a group of enemies, dealing damage when he landed. The trouble was that I didn't feel like I really had a go-to attack. I'd guess that this would be solved by different skill selection, but obviously the demo build had its limits.
Story, Lore, Art:
The story is handled in two ways: Lore tomes and quests. The tomes are actual loot objects that drop at certain places in the zone. When you pick them up, a voice-over starts that explains a bit about whatever is going on. It comes with a handy little UI box that lets you pause, play, or cancel the recording. The quests we saw were mostly linear. As mentioned earlier, the goal during the fire dungeon was to simply fight our way through, killing a particular boss on the way. Once we got out, we stepped outside into a new zone, and there was a quest available immediately to help the quest-giver track somebody down and take him out. Successfully doing so turned the quest-giver into a vendor for magical weapons.
This outdoor area was short, but led to another dungeon, this time an eerie-looking jail-tomb combination. Another new quest sent us searching through many small cells in an effort to free the souls of the innocently imprisoned. It was a fairly big dungeon, but the quest objectives were easy to find — when you got close to them, there was a glowing circle on the ground that made them easy to see. Once done with that, to escape the prison you needed a key that dropped from the zone's boss. A helpful marker on the map pointed out where he was — the convergence of four high walkways, with deep pits below. As we reached the center, undead began swarming up the sides of the walkways out of the darkness below, surrounding and trapping us in place for when the boss popped out and started attacking. After defeating him and reaching the end of the zone, we got to see the end of the quest — a brief, brutal coda to the story we'd seen so far.
A brief word about the art. Diablo 3 is a visually dense game. There are a lot of things competing for your attention. Player skills get a bit of a priority, since that's what provides a feeling of interaction with the world, but there's always something cool to look at — monsters' spells, death animations, destructible objects that break apart violently, traps in the dungeon, and even just the scenery around you. The outdoor level we saw reminded me briefly of the art controversy that happened when Blizzard first showed off some of its level design. It's a cloudy, rainy environment, not terribly dark, but the colors are muted. When you first see it, it's less visually stimulating than the fiery dungeon you came out of, but soon you'll notice the rain, the billowing mist, the occasional lightning flash that makes colors suddenly pop out at you, and it just works.
PvP Battle Arenas:
I also got a chance to try out the new PvP arenas. I started off with doing some 2v2 as a Witch Doctor. The arena was roughly square-shaped, and small — perhaps a bit over two screen-widths wide. There are pillars placed around the map in ways that World of Warcraft PvPers will be familiar with. You can use them to break line-of-sight and gain a brief respite from a Wizard's Death-Star-inspired laser, or other attacks. Health orbs are sprinkled around the map, spawning periodically to let you regain some of your HP. As a Witch Doctor, I could send my Zombie Dogs off to harass my opponents, detonating them remotely to cause more substantial damage, supplementing them with firebombs and a damage-over-time spell.
The teamwork aspect of the fight made itself obvious immediately; at first I didn't pay attention to what my partner was doing, not recognizing when he was running away, and our two opponents turned and destroyed me. Once we started attacking and retreating in unison, letting my Zombie Dogs and his Hydras occupy key spots on the battlefield, we were able to keep the opposing Barbarian off of us long enough to deal with the other team individually.
Later, I did some 1v1 — a Wizard mirror match, which was a ton of fun. In addition to the aforementioned laser and Hydra spell, Wizards had Teleport (which is on a cooldown), Meteor, a damage absorption shield, and Slow Time, which drops a giant bubble around the Wizard, slowing any projectiles or enemies that are inside. With just these tools, we had some pretty complex, strategic fights for a couple of beginners. Dropping Hydras at strategic positions could cover a retreat or apply some damage on an opponent who ducked behind a pillar. Getting up close and using Slow Time gave an opportunity to drop a Meteor, which took several seconds to land but did massive damage. Even better, I'd pretend to retreat, and when he teleported to keep up with me, a Slow Time field or a Meteor would be there waiting for him. Out in the open, we traded laser barrages, but those never lasted long. The damage shield was on a cooldown, but combined with the health orbs it led to some surprisingly long matches that swung back and forth as we each grabbed temporary advantage. It was a lot of fun.
Misc. Tidbits:
A few neat but minor things caught my attention as I was playing through the game. We didn't get to see the crafting system, but we did have the ability to essentially disenchant items on the fly, which provide crafting materials. You do this by taking up to six items at a time from your inventory and dropping them in your cube, which breaks them apart. The UI is polished — there's not a lot of clicking involved — so it's a nice way to keep free space without ducking back to town every few minutes. The Talisman system is also convenient in that regard; it takes stat runes out of the inventory and puts them in their own storage space. Being able to see monster health bars is another quality-of-life change, as is the ability to resurrect your fallen teammates if you can get to them quickly enough (only works in PvE). The demo wasn't very difficult, but we didn't get to choose the difficulty setting, and I presume Blizzard didn't want people to spend their brief window of time making corpse runs.
Despite the new features and the major changes from a year ago, Diablo 3 really feels like a game, now. It seems like Blizzard has settled on most of the major decisions and is just ironing out the wrinkles while building the actual game content. Some systems, like Traits, still need some work, and it was hard to care about the items that dropped for a character we only got to play briefly. But I saw a lot of Blizzcon attendees finish their 15-minute play period and immediately get back in the 30-minute line. The PvP was entertaining, and hopefully Battle.net can provide good match-making while allowing small groups of friends to log on and battle each other whenever they feel like it. I usually try not to waste energy looking forward to a game that's still a ways off, but Blizzard's making it difficult.
http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20101025
I'm just saying... diablo 3 I've been waiting for 10 years for.. But GLEEablo i've only been waiting for a week or so.
Despite your ad campaign on slashdot over the past few days, I am still not going to buy it. I don't care if there's a new "news article" about Diablo 3 every single day, you are wasting your time.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Like Diablo 1 and 2, it will be nothing but a clickfest where the player clicks on random enemies until they die, occasionally picking a new spell to cast. And like Diablo 1 and 2, I will play the fuck out of it and be a hermit for 6 months after its release.
How's it compare to Dungeon Crawl? Or good 'ol vanilla Nethack?
Why the emphasis on PvP??
I was interested in this game for the single player campaigns. I'll probably still play it, but I get the feeling that the single player campaign will suffer at the hands of PvP development resources being used instead.
Is memory failing me, or is this the same Diablo 2 which got drastically worse with every segment, as was bascially unplayable after the 3rd piece? I recall having to reload a fight after going down a flight of stairs about 50 times to just get a strike in. I also recall the graphics getting worse and worse...
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
Every time there is a new Diablo 3 announcement, I scan through to see if they mention the item dropping/picking up system. Racing strangers to click the item the fastest was probably the worst thing about Diablo 2, and brought in lots of 3rd-party programs/cheats.
It does seem to be shaping up well, but Blizzard's attitude towards gamers and their heavy-handed use (and, I'd say, abuse) of the legal system makes me really not want to support them. The DRM is absolutely horrible. I know some Blizz fanboys will come in here to burn me at the stake just for criticizing the DRM alone, but I am a brave, if not stupid, man.
Compare Blizzard and Valve. Oh, sure, Steam is DRM in a sense too, but the system also adds value by Steam's nature. Blizzard treats players with contempt by removing true LAN play and bans people for using trainers on single player--and no, fanboys, trainers can do more than the game's own cheat system, and the whole achievement argument is bunk when you realize that Blizz's DRM is the reason online achievements is even tied to single player play in the fashion in it.
Even compare how the two companies communicate to gamers. Companies like Valve understand the player base; companies like Blizzard/Activision do not, and they are not made up of gamers. Remember the RealID fiasco on the WoW forums?
Buying Diablo III is just going to set a horrible precedent and tell the company that we'll still pay for all this bullshit.
I hated Diablo 2, the story was too far fetched and over complicated compared to the original The first Diablo was perfect and Diablo games are only going to get more and more messed up as they keep tacking on more junk
No LAN, no buy.
Fuck you, Blizzard.
I want it and I'm sure I would go out and upgrade my machine if it needed it.
However, and as always, there will be some form of DRM that means I will not part with my money to be made to feel like a criminal. Put the DRM on the copied games not on the ones I pay for (not too sure how they'll do that).
It does look good. Hmm, Avernum needs some new artwork.
And millions of left mouse buttons screamed in terror
I don't give a shit.
We are greatly disappointed to hear that we are wasting our time. We had hoped that by spending millions to set up Blizzcon every year and carefully planting agents at Slashdot to make sure that they reported all our news about Diablo 3 (as well as our other games, just to throw off suspicion), we would be able to convince you, Dunbal, to spend sixty dollars on our game. It is, after all, about you personally, because our success rests entirely on your opinion.
Sincerely,
Blizzard
and not try to make societal statements. I mean, how hard is it to stamp our feet, display our angst on message boards, and not buy a game we weren't going to buy in the first place.
Sometimes this generation depresses me, too many put more effort protesting makers of games than those running their lives.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Every time there is a new Diablo 3 announcement, I scan through to see if they mention the item dropping/picking up system. Racing strangers to click the item the fastest was probably the worst thing about Diablo 2, and brought in lots of 3rd-party programs/cheats.
Then perhaps you would find this article "Blizzard Explains Diablo III's New Loot System" enlightening:
Yeah, drops for everything, bosses, normal enemies, chests, etc. all drop items per player. If you see an item drop, it's for you. If you pick up an item and don't want it, when you drop it then everyone else can see it.
Basically what you see is for you and you alone. No one else may see or touch it until you drop it. As World of Warcraft illustrated, they learned from that. They learned a lot from that.
My work here is dung.
Hrumph. Must be another disgruntled AoC fan.
Blizzard has recently announced Diablo 4 will feature MINECRAFT and Monsters
what... the... fuck...
I played diablo for YEARS. It had far far far far less clicking than WoW. In diablo you could hold buttons down and have the skill repeat. WoW, blizzard is intent on causing global scale RSI.
Thanks for the excelent review.
I am surprised so many people are spitting garbage about this new diablo game without having even tried it yet...
Looks like it's going to be another super-seller game.
Hey, leave Apple and Microsoft out of this.
Looks pretty cool. Too bad it's made by a company who has shown far less consideration for its customers than many others and will likely have some sort of DRM that comes with it. It's a shame that they have to ruin what would be an otherwise great game with things that don't even really affect the gameplay itself. Oh, well.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
It seems D3 allows much more customizations of character builds with the new tech tree system and skill runes, but I have my doubts that this will actually work. Gamers typically take very little time to figure out what combination of skills (+runes) work best. Most of the skill rune combos will not be attractive options and we end up with few overpowered builds. In D2 each class had few viable builds that could survive hell difficulty, and had half of their skill tree virtually unused. If the skill balancing and specialization are not well planned out, all the new skill systems will be in vain.
Another problem is the necessity of grinding to get mid-high end items. Most D2 players made a sorc just to run Mephisto over and over, and perhaps other builds to specialize at one single dungeon. There is no mention of how D3 will be different.
My last complain is the new classes look like simple mix of D2 classes. I'm not saying the play style will be similar, but something unique would be very welcomed.
They're .png files, but they look like horribly compressed .jpg. Or the game really looks that bad?
A higher resolution wouldn't hurt either. It's been ages since I played anything at 1024x768.
So what will be the next teleporting hammerdin? I hated that about D2, players taking advantage of the system, Blizzard saying it's not a bug but a feature and then not doing anything about it. If anything was done about it it took the form of nerfing the ability making the class ability next to useless.
Every company always hypes their games as the best, and worse here is Blizzard, who has an actual good record for games they did, um, like what, 10 years ago now?
Since then though, what do they have to show? ya, WoW, and being bought by one of the crappiest publishing companies out there.
Starcraft 2 came out, but i'm not impressed. More of the same crap from the past. Which isn't as popular as it once was.
Now we will have Diablo 3. A game based on a gaming genre that has sort of passed us by. Sure, we have some click fests come out recently, Torchlight being one. But is this that big of a deal as people are making?
I know people who are talking about this like it's going to be the game of the decade, and they haven't even played it. They got their money down on something they are hoping will give them the same feeling they had 10 years ago, but it won't.
A friend of mine was talking up Duke Nuke'm Forever or whatever it's going to be called, providing is does actually get released. "Ya, this game is going to be so fucking cool to play" says my friend. I reply "Sure it will. For like 10 mins, then after the 'fuck ya, it's finally done' moments, you better hope there's some sort of decent story in it, or plays well. Because I wouldn't put it past a company to put out whatever just because they know the hype of the game will sell copies".
Of course, he was too stoned to even realize I was talking.
Be seeing you...
I already know they're leaving things out, so I will probably just wait for the inevitable expansion pack.
a secret cow level
I'm still playing Heroes of Might and Magic III on my Pentium. Can I play Diablo 3 on this or should I upgrade? :P
I know my personal game playing preferences, and after completing Diablo 3 in X I'll want to go in to Single Player mode with a memory editor and mess about for another 10X hours in assembler creating novel cheats and hacks for personal amusement.
Blizzard's behavior with Starcraft II means this will cause my account to be locked, despite never cheating on any multiplayer content.
This means no Diablo III purchase for me.
I know, he didn't even mention what theater they were going to be at.
I will not be buying/playing Diablo 3 (despite being a HUGE diablo 2 fan)
Why? Simple:
1.The "everything goes through the online system" crap (same reason I did not buy Command & Conquer 4)
2.Too many gameplay changes from Diablo 2 that I dont like (changing the way skills work for example, changes to the potion/health/etc system, others that I cant remember off the top of my head)
3.Abuse of the legal system by Blizzard (bnetd etc)
4.The fact that Blizzard are owned by Vivendi who continue to lobby governments the world over for ever more draconion IP rules
If I was going to pick up a new RPG to replace my copy of Diablo 2 and my high level Barbarian it would be something from Bethesda like Oblivion or Fallout 3. Bethesda doesnt seem to have done anything evil as far as I can find with Google.
A discussion between my wife and I today:
.. it doesn't. Blizzard, who makes the game, just wants to be iron fisted when doing so makes no sense.
.. I will never purchase another blizzard product again. I may be one person which doesn't make a different to you, but I'm hoping there's enough people out there that feel the same way and will work together to change your policies. You were a good, un-corrupt company at one time ... .. what happened? The younger generation of gamers may be too stupid to resist your new tactics .. but us older gamers are a bit smarter and more disciplined and won't fall for it.
me: I've decided not to buy Starcraft II afterall.
wife: Really? Why?
me: because they require a broadband internet connection just to play single player games instead of just mulit-player games.
wife: What? They're pulling that crap too!?
me: yep. that they are. And sadly, if they play the same game with Diablo II, I will not be buying that either.
wife: I understand that.
me: They're (Blizzard) also suing people who have made single player game mods for Starcraft.
wife: how does such a thing hurt anyone let alone the company who makes Starcraft?
me: As far as I know
wife: well then, don't worry. The plans I had for your birthday and/or xmas will be quickly rearranged.
me: good idea. No one should be required to spend over sixty dollars for a game they intend on playing by themselves then also have to fork over $30 to $60 a month in high speed internet fees in order to play their single player, non-internet necessary game.
wife: Yea, It's ridiculous!
You reading this Blizzard? Stop playing these games and I'll go back to buying your products. Otherwise
Unlike Diablo 1 or 2, it looks like this one will from the outset demand online play. Diablo 2 started off with a decent one-player game but then they kept tricking out the monsters so that a single player (who will maybe have no ranged play, or no magic or no physical damage who will then be nuked by the various immune bosses) has NO CHANCE of getting through the game, unless you cheat like fuck and get a trainer and buy all that tricked-out pimp kit that gives you +18 Bone Spells or whatever.
Since 10.8 update I've not played Diablo2 at all. It's just not possible without tricking out your character.
And, without mules, by the time you pick up the first decent uniques, they're horrendously under-powered and you're better off chucking them away. They only turn up with Lv30+ characters and have a Lv reqirement of, like 6 or something. If you can't pass it on to a new character, you sell it.
I can't believe i read all that blab and NOT ONCE did it mention anything about PERFORMANCE!!!...did the game actually performance smoothly at all??? what were the graphical options???? as the game maxed out??? what hardware was used to play it??? so much for a comprehensive review when i forgot about merely basic things like this.