Blizzard explains Monk Class Not From 'Hellfire'

A user on the Battle.net forums recently asked Bashiok why Blizzard introduced the Monk class when they had said no additional old character classes would be returning as playable in Diablo 3. He was, of course, speaking of Diablo Hellfire when he brought this up and here's what Bashiok had to say in response:

Quote:

"It's not a recognized part of the Diablo franchise, and to be honest it is so much so not recognized, that when people asked about returning classes in the Q&A's and in some of the press interviews the Hellfire expansion just wasn't in anyone's minds.

Plus, it isn't the same class. We aren't taking an old class and updating it. The monk from Hellfire, and in fact the story and content of Hellfire, doesn't exist as far as game lore and story is concerned going into Diablo III.

They happen to share a name, the same as all of the other monk classes that have existed in all other RPG's since the beginning of time. It doesn't mean they're related kit/story/flavor wise."

Having played the Monk class quite extensively at BlizzCon, I can definitely assure you all that he's something totally new. It's actually painful not being able to play the game again right now. You have no idea how badly I want to destroy some more enemies with skills such as "The Way of 100 Fists". That character is simply too much fun.

New Diablo 3 class – Monk

The Monk is the Fourth Class in Diablo 3, He is a light armored, fast hitting melee fighter, utilizing Martial Arts and Light magic. His Combat Style is unique and based on Fighting Games.

Background

The male Monk character comes from the Monasteries of Ivgorod in the Foothills. They are taken into the Monastery at a young age, where they are taught ancient knowledge, belief in 1001 gods that are in everything (one god in water, one god in fire, one god in the air, etc.), meditation to remove sins from the body and martial arts. The Monks have a fondness of structure and creativity, which is why they have various symbols on their bodies and their light magic is brought to life through runes, symbols that invoke the light to aid them. It is said that each Monk has a tattoo on his back, that chronicles their lifetime/adventures (needs confirmation), it may take a monk an entire lifetime to finish the tattoo on his back. 

He serves the Elder Monks of the monastery, who seek to destroy evil in all forms. 

The "theme" of the Society of Monks is a mix of "spiritual" Buddhism and "eradication of evil" of the European churches while maintaining an Asian/Indian visual theme. Abd al-Hazir writes about an encounter with a Monk in a tavern, in his thirty second entry of the Writings of Abd al-Hazir.

Class Design

The Monk thinks of himself as the weapon of the gods against all that is evil, he is a peaceful, patient and a good man who aids people who suffer, with no hatred against anyone, in contrast to the Barbarian. He is adept in Martial Arts, being able to defeat multiple foes without the aid of weapons.

Monk Gameplay Video:

New Diablo 3 Character Class Announced: The Monk

The screenshot came from a Korean-language version of the Diablo 3 site.

Diablo 3 Fact Sheet @ GamesCom 2009

Diablo 3 Fact Sheet is a collection of new stuff found at Diablo 3 GamesCom 2009.

Classes
Still only Barbarian, WitchDoctor and Wizard is available for play at GamesCom 2009 Diablo 3 Demo.

New Diablo III information discovered under GamesCom 2009.

Weather
Stunning weather effects such as rain, dust wind give an amazing atmosphere to Diablo 3 gameplay.

Kill-Combo
Is a very cool Diablo 3 feature, if you kill a serial of monsters you get kill-combo bonus XP. Its graphic displayed right-bottom of the screen and give you a feeling of totally ownage.

Traps
There is all kind of traps similar to Diablo 2, when you open chests, levers and shelves. Different effects can hit you with freeze or damage.

Shrines
Shrines are back similar to Diablo 2, 3 types of shrines was found.

Multiplayer Demo
Under the Diablo 3 GamesCom demo you could play up to two people in the game, the game should support up to 4 players currently. (from known info)

Locations
New location at deserts of Lut Gholein where you go deep into Sundered Pass, and into Catacombs dungeon. An area also discovered called Asheara which is from D2 act 3, and the town of Alcarnus is available.

Monster / AI
All monsters seem to have unique behaviors and AI, so they act differently and have it own sets of abilities.

The monsters list including of:

Dune Thresher,Dune Dervish, Spirits, Frozen Mage, Lacuni Huntress, Enraged Sand Wasps, Skeleton Warriors, Tomb Viper and Warrior Lacuni.

Magic Effects
Absolutely stunning, this give a whole new experience to the game, when you make “Ground Stomp” the earth crack and screen the shakes. Also buildings is interactive, so you can destroy walls and interact with the game.

Luck Stats
What it means is yet to find out, its probaply a replacement of Diablo 2 Magic Find skill.

Stats
The main attributes:
- Strength (physical attack power)
- Agility (dodge, critical hit chance),
- Vitality (energy of life and regeneration)
- Spirit (spell damage and, mana)

Also there is DPS, Defense and Resistance stats info like in Diablo 2.

Gameplay
Gameplay is extremely fast & organic, you can run and slide away from spells and abilities, you have to be fast & strategic. Strategy is absolutely the key to survive and how you want to approach monsters.

You can hotkey up to 5 skills/abilities which you can use on your keyboard (1-5)

Lots of health orbs was dropping that helped you keeping alive.

User Interface (UI)
The UI is very nice and smooth, you can setup, sound volume, graphic interface such as resolution etc and keyboard option where you can setup hotkey for skills, open paperdoll, skill trees etc. Also the UI very easy to use and somehow a mixture of Diablo 2 and WoW that is tweaked with nice tooltips and usability.

Graphics
The graphic is very amazing, there is alot of effects and details from corpse decay, monster effects, spell effects and ground effects. (Watch Gameplay Videoes) Beside that the game runs very smoothly.

Quests
You get different kind of quests from NPC’s such as killing quests, find a person etc, which is similar to WoW Quest system. Moreover it include speech system, where can play, pause and stop the speech. There is also a tooltip on currently quest objectives your doing.

Example of Husam Quest:
The demo offered a few side quests on our way to Alcarnus. We ran into a “Crazed Miner,” who offered us the quest, “A Miner’s Gold.” All we had to do was defend the miner while he raised a treasure chest via a pulley system. When he started, swarms of Fallen came after him. If we were successful in defending the miner from the swarm, we’d get half the gold. It really wasn’t a challenge for the Barbarian, as Ground Stomp made that defense quest a simple task.

Skill Trees
The skill trees work very similar to World of Warcraft where you spend 5 points and next level of skills is opened up.The only different here is you get access to all 3 skill trees at the same time, so you are not forced to one skill tree. Skill trees also opens for new active abilities and some passive abilities that acts like bonuses of active skills. The rune skill system is not implemented yet.

Items
When you mouseover an item – that dropped on the ground, it compares it with your currently wearing item, this way you can instantly see if you want to loot it. Gold is also auto pickup.

Bags
There are bags (containers) found up to 28 slots, where you can put items, the system works similar to World of Warcraft bags system, it just increased in size.

Play Diablo 3 in Germany @ Gamescom

Blizzard more or less confirmed this last month, but now it’s official. Diablo 3 will be playable for attendees at the German Gamescom convention next week. This year’s Gamescom runs from the 20-23rd, in Cologne, Germany.

Diablo II Patch 1.13 Release @ BlizzCon 2009

Rumors tells that it will be perfect sense to let people download Diablo 2 patch 1.13 & released at BlizzCon 2009.
Why release the Diablo 2 1.13 patch at BlizzCon 2009:

• At BlizzCon 2009 Blizzard will announce all there major news including Diablo 2 patch 1.13
• Blizzard hold back the patch 1.13 download for big news so it gets more attention
• As updated 7/20 the patch is just around the corner
• It’s Blizzard and they want to release a perfect 1.13 Diablo 2 patch

Quote from Blizzard:

We’re preparing for a Diablo II ladder reset to coincide with the release of the 1.13 patch that’s currently in development. We don’t have a final release date for the patch yet, but we’re providing early warning as a reset could occur as early as the end of April. We’ll be providing updates with more certain dates once the patch is closer to release.

Please be aware that with a ladder reset all ladder characters are moved to non-ladder. This means that your characters will still be accessible but will no longer have access to ladder-only features and games. In order to play in the new ladder season after the reset you will need to make new ladder characters.

This thread will be updated with more information as it becomes available.

Update - 7/20

As stated in the “Myth” thread (http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=18031060417&sid=3000) we’re still working toward releasing the Warcraft III patch currently in testing on our Westfall Public Test Realm. Testing is looking good on the Warcraft III patch though and once it’s released focus will go to the Diablo II 1.13 patch.

The 1.13 patch is very far along so it should only be a limited amount of testing before it hits the Westfall PTR. Still, any number of issues could delay a release so any dates or estimates for release won’t be made available.

A forum is now available for discussing the PTR and patch and will continue to be available for posting feedback and bug reports once the patch actually goes live. This is to ideally keep the other Diablo II forums dedicated to current game discussion. Any threads discussing the 1.13 patch/PTR/etc. will be moved to the Test Realm forum, or deleted.

http://forums.battle.net/board.html?forumId=20601702&sid=3000