A new beast walks in the world of Diablo3

A rare but dangerous beast It is the most spectacular monster in D3 yet. New Game Info straight from Blizzard
The Dune Thresher

This is how the story of this beast begins:

As I was preparing to set pen to paper to begin recording my thoughts at the beginning of my epic undertaking to gather the world’s knowledge together in one tome, the hand of providence tapped me on the shoulder. The news that a rogue burrower had killed a citizen just outside the city gave me the wonderful opportunity to see firsthand one of the more disturbing creatures we share this world with – the savage dune thresher.

Read more about the DiabloIII Dune Thresher at the source

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People asked Blizzard about the desktop icon of Diablo3.

You know that a good game desktop icon is the first way to get people to play that game ?

Blizzard knows this, the above is a temporary icon for DiabloIII but it will change.

Here is what Bashiok said:

Haha, well the icon right now is literally the Diablo-skull-sans-soulstone from this piece of art - http://www.blizzard.com/shared/blizz-com/images/diablo2/wallpapers/d2deathlogo/d2deathlogo-640x.jpg but I can almost guarantee it will change.
Some fun trivia about that piece though: That piece of artwork was originally created as a logo mock-up, a very long time ago, for Diablo III. The middle numeral was taken out and it was re-purposed as a piece for post-release Diablo II.

The update tomorrow is pretty cool, it’s something you haven’t seen before.

Great things are waiting for us, i simply can’t wait to see what it is. A new Character ? A new skill/spell ? A new gameplay effect ? More lore ? What can it be?

I love the desktop logo though.. nice and simpe in a Diablo kind of way

I will post everything i find on this D3 fan blog

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It is true, Jay Wilson lead designer for Diablo III confirmed in an official interview. We already know that the Barbarian is the Only returning class from D2 (The Necromancer is dead) , and the Witch Doctor looks pretty cool. What will they release next ?

I predict a sorceress type character, this is the official Diacriticals dor com bet. A sorceress type character it is necessary in Diablo3, a pure magic character.

Here it is:

“All the barbarian players are delighted and all the necromancers hate us. I understand, I don’t begrudge them that. I would hate me too! But what I would say is that when we announce the next class, which is quite similar to a previous class, then all those players will hate us too. You can’t make everybody happy, but I think when the game finally come out players will find there’s a good class for them, one they will love as much as the ones that came before. And if they don’t, I absolutely promise that in the expansions we’ll consider bringing back old classes. We just don’t want to do it with the first release. We want to establish our identity.”

I think it is great that Blizzard wants to make Diablo 3 unique, with brand new classes/spells/monsters. But they still have to make them balanced and in a logical way.

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As we know from the DiabloIII Gameplay Video, the blood and corpses fade out really fast. That really takes away from the battle feeling and Gore

Blizzard has already confirmed that the corpses will linger more on the map enhancing the after battle feel but what about the blood?

It is all about game physics and how much tweaking will Blizzard bring to the table. The Diablo games have always been accessible to most computers, and we know that Blizzard is trying to optimize D3 to the bone

Here the official position on this matter: corpses
Bashiok:

First, touching on the corpse fade timers as they stand, the tech to have them last longer has been in for a while. Pretty much how it’s working is that there’s an allowed number of physics “actors” that are allowed to remain at a time. These actors could be corpses, but they can also be pieces of destroyed tables, or railings, etc. anything that relies on physics. These are corpses and destructables generally. As you ‘create’ physics actors the oldest ones disappear. So as you’re fighting there are always a number of actors remaining in the world, and it works out pretty well. Obviously how many of them can remain at one time will come down to final performance tweaking, but right now I believe it’s around twenty.

So, it seems it will be a fixed thing, once the game is packed and shipped the time the corpses and blood remain on the map will be set. It would be nice to see something dynamic, set by the user. People have different priorities when playing a game. Some like to sacrifice speed for eye candy and some like the game blazing fast.
I would suggest a setting to control the number of corpses/items/blood and the time on the map. Not sure if Blizzard can or will implement this in Diablo3

The technology to control the time the actors stay on the map already exists in DiabloIII, the number of present physics items on the map at any time is about 20 (Bashiok says).

For example, in an ideal D3 set, you have killed 20 undead, you will have 20 corpses on the map BUT if you kill another Demon you will have 19 undead corpses and one demon corpse.
Blood is handled separately

A nice way to deal with the gore requests

About the Blood and Special Effects
Bashiok:

On to blood and fading; the “cost” of decals, which include the blood stains, are fairly high. Cost being the relative strain put on the machine running the game. Decals account for blood, but they also account for quite a few other effects, most of which haven’t yet been revealed. In the potential case of a full party creating these decals, blood flowing from creatures, skills that create them, as well as monsters themselves using skills that create them (Wretched vomiting all over the place is a good example), there is the potential to have a large number of decals on screen at any one time. So again, it’s going to come down to final performance tweaks as to how many of them will remain on screen and for how long.

They are handled differently by the game architecture, and they do have a bigger impact on the game performance.
Blizzard wants to make Diablo 3 accessible to everyone, meaning a compromise is necessary. It seems that flowing blood out of those 20 corpses it would be hard on the running PC. I do hope they find a way to keep the blood longer on the map in Diablo III because that is the essence of GORE.

On the same note i wouldn’t want to see performance problems because of an extra blood flowing corpse, they do have a point with those decals
I’m glad to see the Diablo3 officials coming down and talking and listening to the fans

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A new world/map has been haunting me the last couple of days and now i can sleep safe. Here is the Island of Skovos:

Bashiok:

It is Skovos, and I think this piece was something that Leonard showed and discussed at the WWI Lore and Environment Art panel.

It isn’t a location that you’ll visit in Diablo III, but the artwork is a good example of the work and thought going in to fleshing out the world of Sanctuary. It’s already a very complex world with a lot of locations and events, but a lot of it still isn’t visually or contextually realized. As we want to create the feeling of a world outside of your immediate view it’s important to create or expand upon the locations and stories of that world.

As we’re working to create Diablo III we’re also working to create a more visually complete Sanctuary.

It looks absolutely great, a heavy populated world, just what we need in D3. No more 10 house-20 NPC cities !

It is clear now, we will not be able to visit this island in DiabloIII (it would have been nice though) but these words bring me great comfort. We not know that the World will be huge and more dinamic than D2.

Keep up the good work Blizzard crew!

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Would you like to see Cain as a demon ?
Even worse, Cain being Belial - The Lord of Lies in Diablo 3 ..

People seem to think so, the old man was very “lucky” until now. Specially in the Tristram event, he was imprisoned and freed the next year. This would mean that he was imprisoned with no food or water for at least one month. This is not possible unless he is more than human

Also the Journal says :

I feel the darkness consuming me but i dare not tell a soul

An interesting fact, i have to say. Also he was the only one left alive in Tristram, the only one caged.
Cain also has a lot of demon knowledge, he knows almost everything about them and always has a weird attitude when he speaks of them.

I don’t want to take sides on this, just posting the facts.

Blizzard said that Cain will have an important part in DIII, i’m not sure they will assign him the same “job” as in D2.
Also, on a different note, Deckard Cain was already old in Diablo2 … bringing him in Diablo3 would make him even older. Way to old for a human if i may say …

An interesting theory is that Cain actually died in the battle of Tristram and Belial took his form and replaced him in the D2 game. This would be a nice plot for D3.

We all love this old man but i am afraid that Blizzard will make him evil in DiabloIII, the interesting part is that i can’t decide if this is a bad thing or not

One thing is for sure, Diablo III will be a great game with awesome gameplay - lore - story - feeling - characters and demons.

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