MTV’s Multiplayer Blog has gotten in touch with Diablo 3’s Lead Designer, Jay Wilson, seeking his response to the brouhaha over the color and graphics related complaints that emerged shortly after Blizzard unveiled Diablo 3’s 20-minute gameplay trailer and accompanying screenshots more than a month ago.
Within the interview, Jay Wilson responds to six of the most popular Photoshopped Diablo 3 “before” and “after” screenshots, including the infamous and oft-cited homophobic “Necromancer’s Choice vs WOW Gayness” screenshot that spawned the whole mess on 4chan.
Following the jump are some snippets that should rile you up or make you happy, depending on which side of the fence you stand on.
Beginning with the implementation of achievements in Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard has announced its plans to implement achievements across all of its games, including the upcoming Diablo III and Starcraft II through the use of a Blizzard Level system tied to a single, universal Blizzard account. World of Warcraft designer Jeff Kaplan revealed some of the following details to MTV’s Multiplayer Blog.
“Eventually, our plans are for the Achievement system to become an account-based system,” he explained.
When the new Blizzard Accounts are active, a player’s ‘WoW’ points can be added to an overall score dubbed an account holder’s “Blizzard Level.” “It’s basically a gamerscore,” Kaplan said, when I made reference to Xbox Live’s Achievement system. “For now the points are just a ‘WoW’ character score. As we graduate to that Blizzard Account system, which is right on the horizon, it will switch over to a Blizzard Level.
Your ‘WoW’ score would be just one factor that will go into your Blizzard Level. And rather than call it a ’score,’ we just wanted it to be like you’re leveling up on Blizzard games… You’ll have this Blizzard identity, and you’ll be able to see things like ‘Oh, this guy was great at Diablo III, but he never played Starcraft and he was mediocre in WoW. That sort of thing.”
In commemorating the announcement of Diablo III last month, Blizzard and Sideshow Collectibles have revealed the Diablo III Premium Statue series with its first release of “Overthrown”, which depicts an aged barbarian atop the conquered Diablo, shouting towards the heavens in triumph of his victory.
The statue stands at a massive 18″ (457.2mm) high, and is hand-cast in high-quality polystone and meticulously painted to exacting standards, each piece is individually finished with a unique edition number.
Two versions of the statue are available for pre-order, which includes the regular edition or the Sideshow exclusive edition that features an alternate helmeted head.
Both statues are available at the price of US $300.00.
Blizzard’s Mike Morhaime has just announced a possible release window for the release of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, and based on how well things are going in the Beta, the developers are more than likely to have the game out by the end of the year.
We have said that it will be coming out this year. I can tell you it’s not coming in the July to September quarter.
Jay Wilson, Blizzard’s Lead Designer on Diablo 3, looks like he’s one busy man. Along with his interview with MTV, he also conducted one with Kotaku.
In it he talks about the “complex” issue of the art direction and the variety they want the art in the game to bring. He then goes onto the issue of that the game looks like WoW which many people have brought up.
Kotaku has an interview up with Blizzard developers in which they talk about the upcoming achievements in the WoW expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. They also have an interview about how often expansion packs for WoW should come out.
The first article on the achievements and talks about the reasons for their inclusion, what sorts of achievements there will be as well as how many achievements there are.
The second article talks about the WoW expansions and how often they should come out. The main consensus is at least one should come out every twelve months, however if more work is needed, it’s better to complete the product before releasing it.
The first article is all about the innovation that WoW brought along like the rest system.
The second article talks about other MMOs that have tried to do better than WoW and then lead into talking about how they need to design their next game to be the next WoW killer.
Kotaku has a new article up with various Blizzard developers about the new merger with Activision as well as te innovation over at Blizzard. The article is mainly about the sorts of powers Activision has in terms of pricing mechanics and game design.
The main points that all Blizzard developers bring across is that they are not too worried, as their approach has always been to make games they love first, then design transaction models for them later.
Blizzard’s Jay Wilson, lead designer of Diablo III has finally posted a response to the users complaining about Diablo III’s colorful art direction with a definite show stopper of an interview in MTV’s Multiplayer Blog.
52,000 signatures certainly wasn’t enough to sway Blizzard’s opinion on the subject and make them scrap over 2 years of work. As most people know, e-petitions work about as well as goth clothing on… well… anyone. Except for goths. Those complaining about the game’s art direction are the goths of the internet.
But that’s just my take on it.
“There’s no going back now,” he said during an interview in a Manhattan hotel where Blizzard was showcasing their newest games. “We’re very happy with how the art style is. The art team’s happy. The company’s happy. We really like this art style, and we’re not changing it.”
We all know that regardless of the game’s art direction, Diablo III will most undoubtedly outsell its predecessors and achieve top honors, so there’s little anyone can do to dissuade Blizzard from its decision to make the game more accessible to everyone.
Jay also notes the decision didn’t come easy when he states that Diablo III carried a grim and gritty look two and a half years ago during the game’s first and second iterations, but with all the targets on screen it became difficult to see what was actually going on and that the light radius from previous games didn’t quite work in a true 3D environment. When they made the move to a third art style they realized it was time for a change.
Jay further notes that there will indeed be ‘dark’ environments all throughout the game in spite of the game’s brighter areas, so we can expect to see a significant degree of diversity throughout the game’s locations.
Further details can be read at MTV Multiplayer, so be sure to check out the full article.
Blizzard announced today that the tickets for BlizzCon 2008 will be available for sale this upcoming August 11 and that the show will be set to go on October 10-11 in Anaheim, California.
Tickets will be priced at $100 a pop and will be made available for purchase online at the BlizzCon website. Participants can probably expect to get a goodie bag upon arrival. If I lived in the United States, I’d certainly count myself among its participants.
Blizzard also noted that DirecTV will be providing live coverage of the event with a minimum of eight hours coverage on a pay per view basis. Starting in August, new subscribers to DirecTV will receive the event for free.
