0. What the hell happened after the end of Diablo 2?

Blizzard has done a wonderful job of getting information out at the same time as announcing Diablo 3. Here it is straight from the horse's mouth: "It has been twenty years since the events of Diablo II. Of those who faced the Lords of Hatred, Terror, and Destruction in the battle over the fate of Sanctuary, there are few still living who can bear to remember the horrors that the Prime Evils wrought upon the world. And of those who did not witness the terrible events firsthand, most believe the stories to be little more than myth. But something evil is stirring once again in Tristram, and it may already have claimed its first victim: Deckard Cain." That's great and all, but there are befuddling story questions that have us stroking our beards feverishly. Following the destruction of the Worldstone at the end of Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction, why wasn't there a swarm of the demons? Where are Diablo's brothers, Mephisto and Baal? What happened to Diablo? Gaaaah!

Lisa: Planescape: Torment was an incredibly dense, multi-layered experience. Did you have any fear working on it that it would be too much for the average RPGer to handle?

Chris: At the end, yes, not at the beginning, strangely enough. Once it hit Quality Assurance, the reaction we got was "man, this sure is different than the other RPGs that have come through here," and that wasn't necessarily a positive reaction. I think the biggest concern was just the amount of text we were throwing at the character, not the actual content, if that makes sense.

I did have concerns that using the Infinity Engine to create a game that didn't look as accessible as Baldur's Gate would be a chore for our marketing department, though.

GameSpot: What were you hoping from the Blizzard Invitational?

Andrew Park: I was hoping Blizzard would finally take the wraps off of Diablo III, and it happened. It wasn't exactly the best-kept secret in the game industry, but it's good to finally get that out there.

GS: Do you feel Blizzard will be criticized for its conservative design approach with Starcraft II, Lich King, and Diablo III?

AP: I have yet to see any challenges leveled at Blizzard's conservative approach ever stick, and I include all remarks I myself have ever made in there, too. The company has been successful for as long as I can remember and has legions of loyal fans. Take Diablo III, for instance--if Blizzard had drastically altered the formula by making the sequel into, oh, I don't know, let's say a massively multiplayer game like World of Warcraft, that could've alienated a huge portion of the fans. Also, in the case of Diablo III, while I like the new art direction, I'm positive the game will scale well to lower-end hardware as pretty much all Blizzard games have, and because I know Blizzard is smart enough to realize that a great part of the Diablo series' longevity is due to laptop gaming.

1UP: As a Diablo fan, I love the randomized dungeons. One thing that somewhat concerns me is the use of scripted events. Don't get me wrong, it's cool to have moments like bosses tearing through walls like the Kool-Aid man. But does that mean having scripted events negates having random dungeons? Can you touch on the randomness to be found in Diablo III?

RP: Sure, Diablo III is still going to have quite a bit of randomized content. The dungeons will still be very randomized, similar to what you've seen before. The exterior world, well, we're going to make it a little bit more static from an environment standpoint, but we will still be randomizing events and monsters across the terrain. We're really trying to find the right balance between the two. Because we want to build more of a world that you can kind of learn and fall in love with, than what we were able to do with Diablo II which was so randomized in the exterior world. So we're trying to that right kind of balance between Diablo I and Diablo II dungeons, but with maybe a bit more of a World of Warcraft exterior experience, to really learn these lands, learn towns, learn where NPCs are.

"I wasn't a hardcore Diablo fan before joining Blizzard," Boyarsky says as we begin talking. "I played them, of course, and I really liked them, but I usually like a lot more story depth in my games." According to Boyarsky, what drew him to the project was what he sees as the franchise's untapped potential for storytelling. "A lot of people are afraid that we're going to slow the gameplay down by enriching the story parts of the game. We're not doing that at all." The idea is to use some simple cinematic techniques such as dialogue rather than monologue to convey quest information and crafting richer backstories for the main characters that will be reflected in their artwork and the way they view the central action of the story.

Diablo 3 sounds like it will be more structured and quest driven than the older games?

It's a balancing act. We don't want to make it feel too structured and it needs to remain open ended. But we want players to get interested and immersed in the story and lore. This is something we can definitely improve on from Diablo 2. Diablo 2 was great with action and the story was ok but the questing and justification for action was often quite weak. We don't want to make it feel you are being pulled along or hemmed in but we want to make it feel like something big is going on. So yes, a real balancing act.

Eurogamer: World of Warcraft expanded Blizzard's audience hugely by moving into a new area for the company - MMOs. But with StarCraft II and Diablo III you've got games that seem made very much for your core fans. Do you see yourselves experimenting with other genres again?

Mike Morhaime: You mean taking a franchise into a new genre, kind of like we were going to do with StarCraft Ghost?

I think with each game that we create, we try to figure out what type of game we want to make, and then we think about what's the most appropriate franchise, the most appropriate setting for that game. We do it on a case by case basis.

For instance, World of Warcraft - I think the foundation for that idea probably dates back to after we released Warcraft II. We thought, wow, this would be such a great game to create a virtual world around, where you're a character inside the game and you can explore this fantastic universe. Technology finally advanced to the point where it was feasible to make the game. So, genre first, then franchise.

The success of “Age of Conan” is encouraging to BioWare. It tells them there’s an opportunity to enter the market with something new.

“I think it’s also indicative that certainly ‘World of Warcraft’ has grown the market,” he continued. “There’s a lot of folks that play MMO games and they’re always looking for something to try. I think that’s exciting for us. There’s an opportunity for others to be in there and do well. It’s great to see their success and see what we can potentially do in there when the time comes.”

The often discussed "problem" of the cutscene, at least in so far as it relates to the ongoing debate about interruption of interactivity and narrative exposition, rather than being a problem of structural functionality, appears instead to be a question on the propriety of decisions made by designers regarding issues of perspective relatively easily resolved in the framework of editing, rhythm, and aesthetic expression.

During our search for the Diablo Battle Chest bundle on Play.com, we noticed that Diablo III is available for pre-order at £24.99, and has a release date of 27th March, 2009. Could this be the intended release date for Diablo III?

Diablo is a sixteen-stage dungeon that stretches from just beneath to crust to the Inferno, where Diablo resides. The game seems, at first, like a fairly straightforward dungeon crawler where you kill monsters to earn experience, level up, and then descend down to kill more monsters. Eventually, you fight your way to Diablo's lair and do battle with the physical manifestation of this devil.

The presentation continues as the fighter spins like a death-dealing dervish to the cheers of the crowd. It's settled, then: this is the Barbarian using a Whirlwind ability, a fan favorite making a return appearance. As Wilson continues speaking and the game demonstration moves on, it becomes clear that there are some new -- and hopefully welcome -- differences. The new "hotbar" making its way over from World of Warcraft is part of a conscious decision to make the game's combat more tactical (though just as fast-paced) and each of the game's classes distinct. While there will still be health potions in the game, new "health orbs" that drop from creatures along with ready access to skills mean that combat is no longer a game of attrition (and clicking, clicking, clicking!) but more a matter of the ability to read the combat terrain, understand the enemies who have spawned and utilize tactics really fast to pound opponents into goo.

#6 - Multiplayer carnage

As countless co-op games of Gears on Xbox Live have taught us, kicking arses is fun, but kicking arses with a friend is fun squared. Although it will naturally have a full single-player campaign, Diablo III, like its predecessor, is being designed with a heavy online multiplayer focus, and from what we've seen of the game so far it should be a riot.

Consider how effectively balanced the Witch Doctor’s attacks already sound. Now spread that sort of inventive gore-mongering over five completely different, player-controlled characters working together to slay everything in sight.

On the art side, Blizzard's philosophy is: stylization over realism, strong silhouettes, don't be afraid of color, dynamic animations, support the gameplay, and make it epic. With Diablo 3, they started by going back to Diablo to identify the strengths of its style: an emphasis on horror. They then moved on to Diablo 2, which succeeded by expanding on the original and introducing lots of new areas. Said Morrisroe, "Our memory of what Diablo and Diablo 2 were was a bit different than the actuality of it. Visually we were remembering it as more of a dark, colorless game, but there was a lot of vibrance."

Q: Is there anything you're worried about, particularly?

Paul Sams:

Well, we're always worried. We always have a very high bar that we set for ourselves, so I think one of the things that's allowed us to feel a level of comfort is that we've done this progression slowly. It may not feel like that to the outside world, because they don't know all of the details, but what I would say is that over the last four years or so we've amassed the Diablo III team.

We took a base of Blizzard North folks, and added to it, to build the team we have today. The Starcraft II team is the same team that built Warcraft III and Starcraft - certainly we added new people, because some people have gone, but that is the most veteran RTS team in the world. And the World of Warcraft team is a team that's been around for quite a long time.

So while I think I'd be telling you a lie if I said that we didn't have any nervousness, we do feel like we've been able to build some of the best teams in the industry. We've also added to our management team, with people that we've known and trusted for a long time - plus the folks internally have grown, so we feel like we can handle it.

As a result of World of Warcraft we've built a global infrastructure with our European team, our various Asian teams, and we feel that our ability to execute has been really expanded beyond what it's ever been before.

In lead designer Jay Wilson's gameplay demonstration, the first playable class shown was the returning Barbarian. Pretty much everything you remember from the Barbarian remains: a lightly clothed melee badass who can wield two weapons at once. He still spins around with his weapons for the whirlwind attack, and he can still jump up and land with the mighty ground stomp. He remains the most immediately accessible character class. Blizzard Senior Vice President of Game Design Rob Pardo admits that the Barbarian is their way of showing the newness of Diablo III through the familiar lens of a Diablo II character class.

”Diablo III is first and foremost a co-operative game,” that’s the message from Blizzard. They’re not expecting you to play this on your own, so we’re looking at plenty of online options for slashing our way through those dungeons. The campaign is said to be of a similar length to that of Diablo II, with NPCs and story events taking place within the game world. The campaign will apparently feature a mixture of both randomly generated and hand-made static dungeons.

t's just before lunch in Paris, and city of lights has been invaded by hordes of Blizzard fans, eagerly flowing into the Porte de Versailles Exposition Center.

They've come from across Europe to the Worldwide Invitational, and during the opening ceremonies, they witness an announcement that the billion-dollar-a-year developer will be releasing a new PC and Mac title, Diablo 3.

Organizers told Gamasutra that 11,000 people were attending the consumer event, including hundreds of press from Europe and a handful of North American outlets - and with a dozen camera crews crowding both sides of the room for the ceremony.

aturally there are a lot of questions fans may have about the game, but Blizzard isn't getting into many of the details yet, claiming they have quite a bit to reveal down the line. For all the information we have so far on the game, including an interesting tidbit about how Blizzard at one point considered a Halo-like regeneration system in Diablo III, be sure to check out the links below. As of right now, Diablo III is eventually going to ship for PC and Mac.

Incorporating more involved questing and role-playing elements is something Blizzard is focusing on with Diablo III, but also make the gameplay more dynamic. "We had bosses in Diablo II but, again, they weren't really involved. We really want to try to implement bosses that are much more epic, there's much more gameplay to actually defeating them. We're taking cues from games like Zelda, God of War, games like that, bring that to the action-RPG genre. We want to have side quests and scenarios that are much more involved…like defend the town from attack or something like that."

Random dungeons will still be a big part of Diablo III. In fact, randomness will prevail throughout the game (and we mean that in a good way). In addition to having randomly created dungeons to explore, the developers have also introduced random monsters, random loot droops, and new random scripted events into the game to make each playthrough a new experience. In terms of monsters and loot, the stage demo alone was proof of that concept--we saw loads of different types of beasts to fight, from snake-like monsters to hulking brutes like the final big bad beastie.

PARIS - (Business Wire) Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today revealed Diablo® III, the newest entry in its critically acclaimed action role-playing-game franchise. The announcement was made during the 2008 Blizzard Entertainment® Worldwide Invitational at the Porte de Versailles Convention Centre in Paris, France. A cinematic trailer and an extended gameplay demonstration with commentary from the development team introduced the game to the thousands of players in attendance.

“We’ve wanted to expand on the epic story and gameplay elements of the Diablo universe for some time now,” stated Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We know that players have also been long awaiting a return to the series, so we’re very excited to be sharing this announcement with Blizzard gamers here in Paris and around the world today.”

Diablo III will pick up the story twenty years after the events of Diablo II. Mephisto, Diablo, and Baal have been defeated, but the Worldstone, which once shielded the inhabitants of the world of Sanctuary from the forces of both the High Heavens and the Burning Hells, has been destroyed, and evil once again stirs in Tristram. Playing as a hero from one of five distinct character classes, players will acquire powerful items, spells, and abilities as they explore new and familiar areas of Sanctuary and battle hordes of demons to safeguard the world from the horrors that have arisen. The first two characters classes -- the barbarian and the witch doctor -- were shown as part of the announcement at the event today in Paris.

Diablo III will feature a custom 3D-graphics engine to render lush indoor and outdoor areas of Sanctuary with a high level of detail and vivid special effects. The game’s physics-enhanced environments will be interactive and destructible, offering traps and obstacles that create added danger for players and monsters alike. These elements, along with a new quest system and random scripted events, will be integrated into the game’s random-level generator, giving Diablo III the ultimate combination of dynamic gameplay and replayability. Cooperative and competitive play will be available online through an upgraded version of Blizzard Entertainment’s renowned online gaming service, Battle.net®.

Blizzard Entertainment is developing Diablo III for simultaneous release on the Windows® and Macintosh® PC platforms. Further information about the game, including details on the other character classes, major new features for the single-player and multiplayer components, system requirements, pricing, and availability, will be announced as development progresses. To learn more about Diablo III, please visit the official website at www.diablo3.com. With multiple games in development, Blizzard Entertainment has numerous positions currently available. Visit http://www.blizzard.com/jobs for more information and to learn how to apply.

About the Diablo Series

Launched at the end of 1996, the original Diablo helped popularize the action role-playing-game genre, earning widespread critical and commercial success. The game’s sequel, Diablo II, shipped in 2000 to similar acclaim, winning several Game of the Year awards and at the time becoming the fastest-selling computer game ever. Diablo II’s award-winning expansion set, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction™, debuted in 2001, becoming Blizzard Entertainment’s sixth-consecutive #1-selling game. To date, the franchise has sold more than 18.5 million copies worldwide.* Diablo’s gothic horror theme has also inspired a number of licensed products, including novels and action figures.

Blizzard has just announced Diablo III, the sequel to its smash hit action-RPG series, and demoed the game to its Worldwide Invitational audience in Paris.

Target platforms and a release date were not immediately available, but Blizzard's comments about the control system suggest that the game is a PC and Mac exclusive. Following the announcement, Blizzard released tons of screenshots

This week we are privileged to have on the Show Barry Ebersole and Throbblefoot from the Community Expansion Pack team ! Listen in as they talk about everything included in the new version 2.1, hear how they approach their work,a nd find out who all is on the CEP Team. Its very fascinating!!

Remember when we said the teaser image that showed up on a Blizzard splash screen the other day was most likely for Wrath of the Lich King? Uh, we're going to have to call a mulligan on that. There have been some updates to the image since it first showed up, and while it's not conclusively pointing toward Diablo III, it's certainly not conclusively pointing toward Wrath of the Lich King, either.