Friday, October 9, 2009

Auras to Return in Diablo III?

There was recently an interview with Jay Wilson  regarding the Monk and his as-of-yet unrevealed skills, as well as some other paradoxes that might not have been anticipated.

Official Blizzard Quote:

Most of the Monks skills will focus on combat skills and attacks, along with his various escape skills. And we talked at Blizzcon that we`re likely to put some defensive and supportive abilities on him. Possibly Auras. We`ve not done the next round of skills on him yet so we`re not exactly sure.


The idea of auras returning in Diablo III from Diablo II (whose Paladin used them excessively and exclusively) has sparked some conversation and controversy on our very site, raising concerns about their distribution among the Diablo III characters, as opposed to the solitary character distribution in Diablo II, to their functionality being unchecked. If they will function exactly the same in Diablo III has yet to be announced, but since there's only so many ways you can possibly have them, it is most likely that they will be very similar.

In spite of the previous claims of some Blizzard representatives about not having a single support character, however, things are starting to look like a bit of change is on the horizon:


Official Blizzard Quote:

We definitely want to do that with one class. Whether or not it`s the Monk hasn`t yet been decided. The Monk does seem to be the logical choice. The only reason we might not do with him is that he`s too logical.

And, of course, they are absolutely right. Fans have been anticipating this for some time since this character is so obviously related to the Paladin of Diablo II, who functioned in a very similar way. But, is this too predictable for the game? Should we be seeing something more original and less archetypical in Diablo III?

When asked specifically about the Monk's armor type, since it has been heavily discussed that it would not be normal for the Monk to be using heavy armor, Wilson responded with an echo from Diablo's past, where all characters were able to wear any kind of armor regardless of their class:

Official Blizzard Quote:

We`re an item based game. The idea of a character that doesn`t use items is foreign to our basic game philosophy. So one of the things we decided when we were creating the Monk was that we were not going to explore that aspect of the character. We`re going to make a Diablo Monk, and the Diablo Monk uses items.

Is this hold-off from Diablo II a good idea? Although the equipment will not physically appear heavy:

Official Blizzard Quote:

[...]the Monks armor isn`t going to look like heavy plate armor. It`s going to look like a shirt, what our imagination of what the Monks armor could be. It`s definitely going to be equipment, but he`s not going to look like he`s covered in metal[...]

The interview also hinted passingly at the possibility of the Monk being able to dual-wield fist weapons, much like the Assassin of Diablo II, and the possibility of the Monk's tattoos developing through the story line, which Wilson said "[they are] tied to the story arcs we create for the game."



Thursday, October 1, 2009

Female Monk to be revealed later

Many fans wondered why the female Monk was not available in the Diablo III demo at Blizzcon 2009. There have been a few speculations that there would be only a monk male. We do know that a female monk was planned. Ever since Diablo III was announced the developers said there would be two genders per class, but Jay Wilson reinstated what was obvious and confirmed at the press-only Q&A in room 208a that there would be a female monk.

At that point they were still discussing how they would handle her. The monk is bald, so one of the questions among the team was if the female monk would be bald. The night after the Monk class announcement, Flux and I were talking a bit about the monk class, and he laughed while joking ... how’s the female monk going to be called? A nun?

Next day at the press-only Q&A, I asked the same to Jay Wilson, is the female monk going to be known as the Nun?. The whole room laughed.

Don’t worry guys. The female monk will be unveiled at some point. It’s not just a matter of putting together a model and some textures. There is much more to it. Months of work. Bashiok mentions some of the process to create a custom female class. The female monk was not ready for the demo, thus we only saw the male Monk.

Blizzard quote:

- It requires a new model and new texture. And our class models/textures are very carefully crafted. 
- It requires a new rigging and all new animations. Everything from idle animations to a complex skill to how they hold a sword. 

- It requires custom armor sets and alterations to fit weapons and other item types. 
- Skills may be the same in general appearance but all of them have to be altered or customized in some way to fit each gender. Sometimes dramatically. 
- Every gender requires it’s own voice actor and full dialogue recording.

Those could potentially sound trivial until you realize that any one of those things would be weeks to months of work. In some cases the work never stops on ensuring things adapt to fit all classes, and then separately each gender.

To answer the OP, the only big question I think we ever had on creating genders for all classes was how to best handle the female monk. And that’s been solved.