Diablo 3 (if it exists at all) & Blizzard's future (Page 1 of 2)

October 28, 2005
The next big rumor about Diablo III turned up a few months later. As the tale goes, a Blizzard employee named Chris Hartgraves left the company in late 2005, and promptly spilled all he knew about ongoing projects at Blizzard. In an email posted on a World of Warcraft fansite forum on October 28, 2005, Chris was quoted saying the following about Diablo III:

    It is about Diablo 3. Last week they had a thing called "Show N Tell" which they have every 6 months to all the full time employees - Anyways Diablo 3 takes place in heaven. Hell is trying to take it over and it is AWESOME looking ... I magine the brightness of heaven being taken over by the darkness of hell ... Imagine WoW but in a Diablo world in amount of size and playability ... Also, guild housing is available in this game for those of you who know about it. They should have a gameplay demo to show at BlizzCon.

There was no way to confirm this account of Diablo III, since, contrary to Hartgraves' prediction, the game did not debut at the 2005 BlizzCon, and still hasn't made an appearance, more than 2.5 years later. That fact doesn't do much to argue for Hartgraves' claims, and they would be forgotten by now if not for the fact that he also said Starcraft II was under production long before it was officially announced, and made some accurate predictions about World of Warcraft in the same email.

Hartgraves' Diablo III comments were echoed, or backed up, by an unnecessarily-obscure post GamingSteve.com, on February 3, 2006.

    I don't want to get any of my friends at Blizzard in trouble, so from instead of mentioning "Diablo III" let's call this theoretical game "Beelzebub 3" and instead of "Blizzard" let's call them "Snowstorm".

    "Snowstorm" is indeed working on "Beelzebub 3". Not only are they working on it, but they have been working on this game for no less than the past four years. In fact, "Snowstorm North" nearly completed the game several years ago, but what they developed just "wasn't fun" and been quietly reworked. This was actually one of the key reasons why Snowstorm North was closed and everyone was relocated to Irvine-based Snowstorm, so that the bigwigs in Irvine could better track and follow the development of Beelzebub 3.

    ...It is true that Beelzebub 3 will be done in true 3D and it did indeed look freaking awesome. It is also true that Beelzebub 3 features a story between the conflicts of Heaven and Hell and contains a very cool feature where every single item in the game can change between a "light" version and a "dark" version. However this was also one of the problems with the original version of the game. Other than the ability for any item to visually change from light to dark it didn't affect the actual stats of the item or change the gameplay in any way. So the game has gone through a total rework to inject some "fun" into the gameplay and to make it feel like the Beelzebubs of old.

    The core gameplay Beelzebub 3 will play pretty much like Beelzebub 1 and 2, but the game world will be much larger and provide a much deeper experience -- many more items, more levels when you go through the game for first time, more skills, more of everything. In addition, the multiplayer aspect will be greatly enhanced from the past installments and don't be surprised to see more than a couple of WoW-based concepts to leak over into the Beelzebub 3 universe ... such as two opposing factions (Alliance and Horde = Heaven and Hell), enhanced guild functionality, and maybe even mounts?!

Like the leak from Hartgraves, there's no confirmation of this yet, and it's been more than two years since it was posted. The plot concept, of the game being set in the Heavens, is logical. After all, players descended into the Hells in Act Four of Diablo II, the game world's mythology features numerous battles between the Angels and the Demons, and there's constant interference/assistance from the archangel Tyrael. Furthermore, D2X ends with the corruption and destruction of the Worldstone, an object that is said to make it difficult for demons or angels to cross over into the mortal realm. With the Worldstone gone, it would presumably be easy for demons and angels to come to earth, but the opposite would be true as well, which could lead to human invasions of the Heavens or the Burning Hells.

As for the rest of the predictions, they're more or less common sense; of course the game will be fully in 3D, and of course there will be expanded online play, guild housing, faction warfare, and so forth. Those features are all but mandatory in an online RPG these days.

Originally posted by: Mourning-Blade-Tojara

Originally posted by: KingofNewYork
I would predict a pseudo-MMO style for Diablo 3. Towns would be much like they are in World of Warcraft, but once you leave town you will only run into people that join your instance.

I don't see them making it a full MMO. Mainly because of the massive server infrastructure and all the extra staff they would need.

I would say we get probably 3-4 more years of WoW expansions and large patches before they stop releasing huge content upgrades. They will probably announce a Starcraft MMO right around the time they stop releasing huge content upgrades for WoW.

LOL, I'd play world of staracraft. Can't imagine what players would do though. Can't really chose a marine and expect to engage a player who rolls something like a...Ultralisk?

Originally posted by: KingofNewYork

Originally posted by: Mourning-Blade-Tojara

Originally posted by: KingofNewYork
I would predict a pseudo-MMO style for Diablo 3. Towns would be much like they are in World of Warcraft, but once you leave town you will only run into people that join your instance.

I don't see them making it a full MMO. Mainly because of the massive server infrastructure and all the extra staff they would need.

I would say we get probably 3-4 more years of WoW expansions and large patches before they stop releasing huge content upgrades. They will probably announce a Starcraft MMO right around the time they stop releasing huge content upgrades for WoW.

LOL, I'd play world of staracraft. Can't imagine what players would do though. Can't really chose a marine and expect to engage a player who rolls something like a...Ultralisk?

Can't really choose a Grunt and expect to engage a player who rolls something like a...Abomination?

Originally posted by: Killgore9998
Wow, the idea of having to deal with mounts (OMFG RARE MOUNTZZZZZ) again is a huge turn off. I hope that part doesn't make it in.

Originally posted by: Killgore9998
Wow, the idea of having to deal with mounts (OMFG RARE MOUNTZZZZZ) again is a huge turn off. I hope that part doesn't make it in.

Originally posted by: Killgore9998

First of all, thank you for asking in at least a neutral tone.
It's not the idea of simply having mounts. I was more than happy with the way mounts were originally, when it was just the 8 for each race on each side. Plus two for warlocks and pallies. Then rare mounts started appearing, like Baron rivendare, the zg mounts, and so forth. The frostsaber mount too, but I didn't play alliance so I don't know when that was implemented. Then there were the AQ40 mounts which were good since they were temporary, except for the black bug mount which I can accept for being the reward for working hard to make a personal mark on a server's history. That was ok too, and it was fine until mid-BC when the mount concept exploded. Now on top of the default flying mounts there are crafted mounts, exceptionally rare drop mounts like the phoenix and the druid flying form quest mount, there are mounts that you have to grind rep for (5 types to be exact) and mounts from the trading card game. There are even holiday mounts. And now the ZA bear mount. I shudder to think how many they'll add for the expo.

So, first off it feels like there are way too many both in terms of types and flavors (personal opinion). The whole flying/ground mount dichotomy makes matters worse by forcing you to keep track of multiple at a time. Finally, mounts become something more than a bit of flavor and utility for a character, they often become a way overblown statement about your character's status. If you go to kill Kael or whatever, and you manage to get a phoenix, you'll have everyone on the server creaming their pants for you every time they see you just because you won a roll. It's really overblown, and it doesn't matter if your gear is crap. Meanwhile you could have the best pants in the game, and no one will ever notice unless they're inspecting you for some other reason.
So it just feels like this big mind game. You walk through shatt and it seems like everyone is begging for attention. No one gets it either because there are so many goddamn uniquely rare mounts that everyone can have a different one, and they cease to be special.
That is my problem with the mount system in WoW.

I'm fine with mounts in D3 as long as they don't become a giant clusterfuck nonsense mechanic there too.

Originally posted by: Killgore9998

I'm fine with mounts in D3 as long as they don't become a giant clusterfuck nonsense mechanic there too.

Originally posted by: Killgore9998

By the way, if you're again trying to look for logical failings then I suggest you don't try, since this is an editorial, not a scientific journal.

Originally posted by: Killgore9998

You've failed to understand just about everything that I said. Getting a powerful set of armor would be a meaningful accomplishment, and grinding the rep for that would be that as well. Grinding the rep for character flavor is not a meaningful accomplishment, because your old mount worked just as well. Yet it looks as though you made a meaningful accomplishment, often more so than if you had gotten the armor. It's disingenuous.

I don't know where you came up with this idea that the mounts are not big. Even the smallest ones are at least as tall (or in the case of the night elf mounts, long) as an average sized player. After that they just go up and up in size. The two mounts you claimed were the only ones that fit my description arn't even the biggest - the netherwing mounts are huge, and the armored netherwing mounts are even bigger. Not to mention Elekks or however the fuck that's spelled. With the exception of the gnome mounts (which are the smallest), and the turtle mount, which don't really seem to be intended to be intimidating, the rest are designed to be that way, or at least powerful looking.

Your last line just appears to be a retarded attempt to put words into my mouth. I've been the one with the cool mount as often as not, and I felt the same lack of appeal in both situations. In fact I went back from using my ZG tiger mount to my regular skeletal horse because it was stupid when new players would say "wow you must be so advanced" when really all I did was get lucky in a ZG roll.