Diablo III Previews, Interviews and Editorials

We have a few new previews and editorials for Diablo III, which, despite some controversial issues, seems to be garnering some – admittedly predictable – very positive impressions from the press.

Kotaku goes hands-on with the title:

At its core, the Diablo III beta feels like the click and kill experience that made the previous games so immediately gratifying more than a decade ago. Diablo III’s early acts feel atmospherically in tune with the previous entries, filled with runs through undead spewing graveyards, infested cathedrals and dark caves overflowing with creepy crawlies. Already, it feels infinitely replayable, thanks to the now standard stuff randomly dropping loot, randomized dungeons and a strong cooperative multiplayer experience.

Blizzard has not yet announced the release date for Diablo III or exactly when the game’s beta will begin or end. Just don’t get too attached to your demon-slayer. He or she will be wiped when the beta ends.

And so does PC Gamer:

There’s a lot of offputting stuff going on with Diablo 3 at the moment. I don’t agree with Blizzard’s idea that Diablo should be an online-only game, or that it’s all about trading. I thought I was going to disagree with the skill system too: it means you no longer make any permanent choices about your character, which was a key part of Diablo for me.

In practise, though, I found the new system didn’t remove interesting decisions it added them. It kept all the excitement of new possibilities, highly individualised builds that kill in ingenious new ways. All it removed was the fear of permanently screwing yourself by mis-spending a point. That does remove the tension and hand-wringing over how to level up, but I didn’t miss it.

Even without finding any skill runes to customise these abilities, the ways you can combine them into unique setups for each class are just mind-boggling. You don’t choose a skill when you level up, but you do choose a build, and that’s like picking every skill all over again. It’s a more creative process, not less.

The Escapist echoes the positive impressions:

Exploring the beta a second time I discovered mini-dungeons I hadn’t noticed before – probably because they hadn’t been there before. Diablo III makes tweaks to the maps every time you play just to keep you on your toes. I noticed the most when I joined three other players to take on The Skeleton King. My friend invited us to a match that began upon entry of the Tristram Cathedral. At the time I didn’t realize something was up, but my group kept getting lost – following passageways to dead ends and roaming the map aimlessly. We were trying to follow the route we’d taken during our last play but the randomized map had turned us around.

When we finally got to The Skeleton King’s lair our party got split up. Two of us went inside while the other two accidentally refused a pop-up widow that appeared when the boss fight was about to begin. This seemed like a disaster at first, but the two players in the fight stoned back to New Tristram then teleported to us by clicking on our banners in town. We all entered the boss fight together and murdered The Skeleton King as we were destined to do. Gold and weapons fell from his body and a message popped up on screen telling us that we’d completed the Diablo III beta. We were done, but my first impulse was to play just one more time. Argue all you want about DRM and the ethics of micro-transactions. Just know that when the time comes for the Diablo III beta to kick off you’re going to have way fewer people to preach to. Just like me they’ll all be sucked in.

GameSpot chats with Leonard Boyarsky, veteran of the industry and lead world designer on the title:

GSA: Here’s the elephant in the room: How complete is Diablo III? Are we looking at 80 or 90 percent?

LB: Right now, we’re closing in on it. It’s feeling really good. We’re still going with the “When it’s done” answer.

GSA: In terms of story, are players going to be dealing with the rest of the prime evils Belial and Azmodan? Will they be the focal point of the story?

LB: Yes, and yes. The prophecy of the end days is all about the invasion from hell. When Deckard Cain pieces new lore and arcanum together in the game’s story, he’ll have the answers to keep it from happening. We’ve had Diablo and his brothers, Mephistopheles and Baal, on Sanctuary before but never accompanied with an army.

It’s always been a one-on-one affair with these guys. Even though Belial and Azmodan are the “lesser evils,” they’re the guys in charge of the civil war in Hell. They’re the ones who exiled Diablo and his brothers; they have their own power. And now, they’re getting ready to stage the next invasion.

PC Gamer also offers an interview on the controversial real money auction house and always-online DRM and some comments on gold farming:

PCG: Diablo III is following in StarCraft II’s footsteps and going online-only. Is it possible, though, that you might be pushing online functionality a bit too hard? I mean, what about the players who just want to tune out the world? If they, say, slay a big boss and then a chat bubble suddenly pops up, doesn’t that sort of ruin the moment?

Bridenbecker: I don’t think that individuals want to isolate themselves and be solitary cave people. But I definitely believe that individuals prefer to play in more isolated environments at times. That doesn’t necessarily have to compete with the goal of having things online. The capabilities that get presented when you push people into an online connected environment are so much broader. It’s like Rob [Pardo] was talking about: Imagine you have a world where you want to play in an entirely single-player environment. You go through and you level up your character and you get all these awesome item drops and so forth. Then you say, (OK, I do want to play with my buddy.) Well, guess what? We have to make you re-roll a new character because we can’t guarantee [a lack of cheating or hacking]. In an online environment, we can do that.

And finally G4TV’s Adam Sessler has one of his video soapboxes on the the much debated introduction of a real money auction house to the title.