The European Gaming Convention took place in Leipzig, Germany this year and there has been alot of goodies that came from this convention as far as Diablo 3 goes. No less than 6 different interviews with Jay Wilson has been uncovered with lots of juicy stuff and a whole lot of new graphics, so it was a really action packed event indeed it seems.

The first D3 team interview from the GC is up on IGN and it’s a good read. They spoke to D3 Lead Jay Wilson, and after getting the obligatory art direction question out of the way, they dug into some interesting game functions: inventory, skill use, monster design, health sytems, and more. A quote:

“A lot of people, I think, would say that’s a hallmark of the Diablo series, the potion system. We looked at it and said, ‘No, that just makes the game worse,’” said Wilson. “It doesn’t make it play like a better action game, it just kind of gives the player infinite health. It’s actually a fairly poor recovery mechanic because it forces the designers to design monsters that have to deal with a player that has infinite health. The only thing you can do is have monsters that can overcome that health and essentially one-shot you. That’s not a very interesting monster. It’s actually a horrible monster. But that’s the only option. The design shoehorned the designers into that kind of monster design. So we focused on a health system that actually forces the player to think tactically to recover health from monsters and to put them in some situations where they are low on health but have to walk into an enemy encounter anyway. That makes for a much more challenging encounter but it also makes for a situation where we can design the monsters to be a lot more interesting. We actually can lower damage on monsters. We want monsters to do less damage because we want them to wear you down over time and do things that are challenging in different ways.”

Gamespy has posted their own interview with Jay Wilson. This one is less a conversation about game mechanics and more a standard Q&A, with quotes from Jay about the features we’ll see in Battle.net 2.0, the state of the RPG genre, randomizing level design, D3’s planned financial model, and how D3 might handle PvP. Here are the highlights of the interview, and a quote for good measure:

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To a poster who complained about the obscuring visual fireworks created by various Diablo 2 skills, Bashiok explained the D3 Team’s design philosophy.

Keeping the visuals distinct and “readable” is an extremely important focus for us, and as has been stated quite a few times, relates to a lot of the art style and direction choices.

You need to be able to read the scene, tell monster and player apart, and not have it turn into a mess of spell effects. While we’re really aiming for over-the-top skills and effects, it’s going to be a constant goal (and likely struggle) to keep those in line so that in a multiplayer game it’s going to retain its readability.

It’s fine for things to get chaotic, it will happen and we want there to be mass-mayhem and slaughter, but we’re trying to keep the game playable even during the chaos. It’s a balance.

Other fans are hungry for more content, and are already wondering if we’ll see the goods at Blizzcon. Will we get a gameplay movie? Bashiok deals with one such fellow with Roper-ian grace, acknowledging, inspiring, and redirecting him so smoothly he never even feels the PR knife slide in.

Well, you’ll just have to wait and see!

In the more immediate future a few of us are heading out to Leipzig for GC next week. We’ll be joining our friends from the Blizzard Europe office to meet and greet the fans. If you happen to be passing through Germany and also happen to have a ticket to the convention, be sure to stop by and say hello.

Other forum goes are not so easily put off, and a follow up question is quickly posed, asking what sort of information we’ll see released to coincide with that major German gaming event. Not a whole lot, apparently:

From what I gather I think I would equate it more to our presences at similar booth-style conventions, ComicCon and GenCon Indy in years past, for instance. We have a booth, usually some gaming stations set up, and we talk with people about the games and hold interviews. I fully expect some good interviews with Jay to come out of it, but I would more or less expect that to be the main focus of information coming out of the show regarding Diablo III.

Stop by and say hi though. I think I may be the only Blizzard person there with a goatee, so I should be easy to spot. I’m scheduled to be there every day to chat up fans about the game.

Source: Diii.com

Blizzard has updated the official Diablo 3 webpage again with additional material for us to enjoy and for the graphic nuts to go haywire about.

1. Artwork 1 - Some form or armoured dog/hyena like creature.
2. Artwork 2 - A View of the city of Ureh.
3. Artwork 3 - An angel like shape standing in what appears to be a portal of some sort.
4. Screenshot 1 - A dungeon voew with a ladder.
5. Screenshot 2 - Outside view of barbarian fighting some skeletons.
6. Wallpaper 1 - A Wallpaper view of Artwork 2, city of Ureh.

Multiple sources has already reported this, like StarCraft 2 Forum:

Brian Morrisroe, the lead Diablo 3 Art Director apparently quit last week, according to a statement released by Blizzard to game blog Kotaku. The announcement comes on the heels of criticism from Diablo fans about the style of the new game’s art, but according to Blizzard Morrisroe’s disembarkment is unrelated. Blizzard also stated that the game art would not be changed and that they “are pleased with the look and feel” of the game, and it won’t change after Mr. Morrisroe’s departure.

Still, the timing of the event leaves one to wonder if the Diablo community has offended. Blizzard is now seeking new talent at the Art Director position. It doesn’t look like they’ll have a tough time of it.

Regarding Brian, he recently resigned to form a startup company “outside the game industry”, which is why we posted about the open position. That change won’t impact the game…we’re really pleased with the look and feel that Brian helped create for Diablo III, and the new person we bring aboard will work with other artists on the team to maintain the art style moving forward.

Leord at diii.com has found a nice tidbit about the development of Diablo 3 that confirm that it is indeed “heavily” in development.

Morhaime was speaking in Activision Blizzard’s first quarter earnings call last week and confirmed that Diablo III is “heavily” into development. Mike also confirmed that the game has a huge user base, with Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 having has sold 18.5 million units in total so far(!).

	Blizzard Quote:
	The original Diablo has been widely credited with helping to revitalize the role-playing game genre. Combined, previous games in the series have sold over 18.5 million copies worldwide. As with StarCraft II, Diablo III will benefit greatly from our revamped online game service, Battle Net, since the focus will be on cooperative online play. I would also like to point out that sales of the previous StarCraft and Diablo games broke into the top PC games sales charts in the weeks following the announcements of StarCraft II and Diablo III. This activity shows that there is tremendous continued interest in these franchises, that gamers will go back and purchase games that have been out for more than eight years. We do not currently have a release date for either StarCraft II or Diablo III, but we can say that they are heavily in development on both games and we are committed to making sure these games meet and exceed the high expectations of our players.

If you have played Diablo 2 you have probably more than once seen the annoying spambots screaming about the latest items available for sale, both ingame and in the battle.net channels and I was surprised to see that not only are they still around, but they seem to have evolved into a serious business!

I checked out 3 such sites earlier today and I must say that as a returning gamer with little time on my hands I do get tempted to take the easy way out and buy things rather than spend the hours grinding them up and I started to wonder what kind of business ideas we might see for Diablo 3 and if things will change that will make these kinds of businesses impossible or less likely?

We know that Blizzard will make Diablo 3 a game where trading will be a factor and it will be far easier to move object between characters and accounts. We also know that Battle.net will see many improvements, perhaps even introduce a marketplace, like we have seen on the old diabloii.net (now changed into diii.com) to allow people to make actual trading more controlled and easier?

As I look through the items on the three diablo 2 items websites I ponder for myself what Blizzard really think about this kind of behaviour and if they will take action to move things around to their own advantage soon. It would not be a big stretch to tap into this kind of cashflow by setting up a marketplace like e-bay where anyone can buy and sell their game related items and then a percentage goes back to Blizzard in terms of fees.

The advantages are many for such a setup, not just in terms of tapping into a new cashflow, but also to be able to control the market for in-game items to prevent sales of illegal and/or bugged items. It also would set a balance between seller and buyer if adding a reputation system, which is not very difficult to do really. In such a controlled environment people could make money from their efforts and Blizzard would still benefit from the money exchange without having to actually participate, like sellers paying a license fee or something like that.

For me as a webdesigner and hopeless ideamonger I could surely consider setting up a marketplace for Diablo items like e-bay. Its not very difficult to do as there are good scripts out there that could easily be modified and re-designed for that purpose, but the question is if its worth the time and cash investment?

While I ponder on that I’ll continue to look at all the items I want to have once again from these diablo 2 related webshops and ponder on the ethics of actually buying myself my old character back or not…

This news has already spread far and wide since I have been a bit off this weekend, but it seems that Blizzard are planning to introduce a achievements system into Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 and World of Warcraft in the expansion Wrath of the Lich king, which will all be linked to a “Blizzard Account”. This will give you some sort of “Blizzard Level” depending on your progress and activity in all the games, which I am not sure what to feel about…

Lets see what diii.com report:

In the latest press event, Jeffrey Kaplan, the Lead Designer of WoW at Blizzard Entertainment revealed that Diablo 3 and StarCraft 2 will have achievements linked to them, just like the WoW expansion Wrath of the Lich King. A global “Blizzard Account” will be used to track Achievements. The Achievements from different games will accumulate to your “Blizzard Level”. MTV reports:

	Blizzard Quote: (Source)
	When I spoke with lead “World of Warcraft” designer Jeff Kaplan yesterday about the game’s new Achievement system, he revealed that eventually players will have a Blizzard Account that shows Achievements from other Blizzard games they’ve played, including the upcoming titles “Diablo III” and “StarCraft II.” “Eventually, our plans are for the Achievement system to become an account-based system,” he explained. [...] “Your ‘WoW’ score would be just one factor that will go into your Blizzard Level. And rather than call it a ’score,’ we just wanted it to be like you’re leveling up on Blizzard games… You’ll have this Blizzard identity, and you’ll be able to see things like ‘Oh, this guy was great at Diablo III, but he never played Starcraft and he was mediocre in WoW. That sort of thing.”

The system will launch with Wrath of the Lich King, the WoW expansion, in a per-character basis, but will be changed to account-related achievements, and to be posted on the World of WarCraft Armory. The next step is including StarCraft II and Diablo III, and we are guessing any new game that is released, and possibly even the older ones.

This also teaches us something about Battle.net 2.0, where this account probably will be located. A big update on Battle.net 2.0 info will soon be released, so make sure to keep your eyes open!

A post regarding what Activision can and can not change about Blizzard has been posted over at Kotaku.com where they sat down with World of Warcraft game director Jeffrey Kaplan:

The development talent at Blizzard now has a new publisher and parent in Activision Blizzard. If you ask the developers, they’re enthusiastic about the change. “All game development is still completely within our Irvine headquarters,” World of Warcraft game director Jeffrey Kaplan told Kotaku during our sit-down today. “There’s no outside influence at all in the development of Diablo 3, StarCraft 2 or WoW.”

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The somewhat ridiculous outcry regarding the art direction of Daiblo 3 that has resulted in 52.000 names on a petition to change the direction of the artwork in Diablo 3 was adressed by lead designer Jay Wilson when doing an interview with MTV Games.

Don’t like “Diablo III“’s colorful art direction? Too bad. We were told today that it’s not going anywhere.

Lead “Diablo III” designer Jay Wilson told me that even though 52,000 “Diablo” fans have signed a petition asking Blizzard to return to the darker, more gothic look of the old “Diablo” games, the new, vibrant art style is here to stay.
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A topic regarding the possibility to add weapons markers on bosses as one fight them to make it more fun and enjoyable was replied to by Bashiok. The answer was neither positive or negative, regardless which side of the discussion you belonged.

For boss fights we don’t really want to just start throwing “damage decals” on them. It can very easily be too subtle if you’re fighting a smaller boss or one that has odd geometry to it, and it can also end up that no matter the flavor, style, and cool look to a boss you just end up fighting a big gory mess.

Also we think that we can go a lot further than just simple decals and get something much cooler out of a boss fight. So what we hope to do for at least the bosses where it makes sense is to show more apparent and visually noticeable damage states. Instead of a blood splatter they may actually lose a limb, or a piece or armor, or - like the Thousand Pounder - may transform in some dramatic way changing how the fight progresses. We want to go a lot further than just showing sword slashes and instead use dramatic and noticeable (which can be difficult in a game like this) ways to indicate a boss’ current state.

Speaking of battle damage though, and I don’t think this came across in the gameplay video or any of the screenshots as of yet, but when an enemy dies a critical death it actually drenches your hero in blood if you’re within proximity of the spray. It’s awesome.

After a member commented on the effects on loosing a limb and how it might make the boss easier to fight he quickly replied:

It was just an example I made up, I don’t know if the loss of a limb would actually happen or make sense for a fight.