Category: gaming

Enter the Demon Hunter

At Blizzcon today, they announced the fifth class for Diablo 3: the Demon Hunter.  She’s basically a cross between the Amazon and the Assassin from D2.  So while her main weapon is the crossbow (she can even dual wield ‘pistol crossbows’!), she also uses traps and shadow magic to kick demon ass.  I haven’t seen any gameplay videos showing the Demon Hunter in action yet, but the demo videos of her skills look awesome.

In other D3 news, the mysterious Talisman has been revealed to be a dedicated inventory for charms.  Charms were something that first appeared in the D2 expansion pack.  They could be quite helpful, but you had to keep them in your inventory if you wanted to receive their benefits.  Consequently, it wasn’t uncommon for players to lose a ton of inventory space because of all the charms they had collected.  I’m glad to see that D3 will solve that problem by giving charms their own special receptacle.

I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for an announcement about the beta test, though I know I’ll probably be disappointed.

Another Diablo 3 tidbit

Gamescom has produced a few more tidbits of info about Diablo III.  In an interview, game director Jay Wilson revealed that there’s going to be a new feature called the Scroll of Wealth, which will allow your character to sell items ‘in the wild’ without having to return to town.

Like the artisans, I think this is a welcome addition to the Diablo franchise.  Going back to down just to sell stuff gets old real fast, and the Scroll of Wealth should help keep you immersed in the game longer.  In Torchlight, you could send your pet up to town with excess stuff, but I like the idea of having a magic scroll better.  Helpful as it was, the idea of sending a cat to sell a suit of armor was always a little bit jarring.

And while this isn’t exactly ‘news,’ Jay Wilson reiterated that town portals won’t exist in Diablo 3.  Instead, you’ll have a system of fixed waypoints, similar to those found in Diablo II.  Needless to say, if you can’t return to town whenever you want, having a Scroll of Wealth on hand will be even more handy.

Sadly, despite the pleas of the interviewer, Jay is still keeping mum about D3’s release date.  At this rate, I think the sequel to The Name of the Wind will come out before D3!

New Diablo 3 feature!

For those of you who don’t already know, I’m a huge fan of action RPGs, in particular Blizzard’s Diablo series.  Naturally, I was thrilled when, way back in 2008, Blizzard announced that there would be a Diablo III.  Since then, Blizzard’s kept mum about much of the game and only released little tidbits of information here and there.

At Gamescom today, Blizzard announced a new feature of Diablo III: the artisan.  Artisans are special merchant NPCs that follow your character through Sanctuary.  In addition to basic buying and selling, artisans will also be able to make items for you based on materials that you find during your travels.  For example, the blacksmith will create weapons, while the mystic will make scrolls and charms.  You will also be able to level up your artisan to give them access to better skills and abilities.

This news is probably going to piss off  people who think that D3 is already too much like World of Warcraft, but I think it’s cool.  I particularly like the news that you can now salvage unwanted goods for their raw materials rather than just selling them for gold.   In games like Diablo II and TitanQuest, it’s really easy to become as rich as Crassus and there comes a point where it’s not worth picking up most stuff since you already have more gold than you’ll ever need.  But if you can break stuff down, salvage the materials, and then use them to make something cool, loot-gathering starts to serve a purpose again.

Here’s a video narrated by D3 game director Jay Wilson that introduces the blacksmith artisan:

What do you think of the artisans?  Will they make D3 more enjoyable or are they just another example of the evil influence of WoW?