Dying in Diablo is something of a tradition. I vividly remember my Diablo I corpse runs and my memory is forever etched with images of Duriel trumping over my dead Ice Sorceress in Diablo II.
So what’s cooking in Blizzard’s lair when it comes to the death mechanic in Diablo 3? Listen to this:
Before I get in to what we are doing let me go over some things we want to avoid with a death mechanic. We want to separate being in town and being out on a quest/adventure/dungeon as much as possible. Leaving the safety of a town should not be a decision you take lightly. We don’t want to remove the sense of suspense and danger by making town something you’re always going back to pretty much whenever you like.
The intent is to create a greater separation from being in town, and not, and to make your time away from town a lot more tense.
On that same note we also don’t want to remove the player from the action. Throwing them back to town for every death really breaks up the action, and not in a fun, interesting, or necessary way.
So, with these things in mind we’ve found that a check point system works really well. Throughout your adventures, and generally at the ends of each “floor” of a dungeon your character is saved to a checkpoint. When you die you’re dropped back at the last checkpoint with a small amount of health, and the rest regenerates slowly. It’s obviously a very forgiving system as it is. It’s just too early to put a ton of thought in to what penalties there should be, if any, added on top of it.
Regardless, potential penalties aside, this is the death mechanic we’re currently using and it’s working really well so far.
OK, so they’ve borrowed the last point saved mechanic from any recent game that I’ve played. Not too original but I’m not complaining too much either.
This is copied from Titan Quest.
I’m curious what will be the consequences on the long term, when you play a lot the game, and could get frustrated about not being able to get back to town that often.
We’ll see.
Hmm, I don’t think dying was used as a substitute for a Town Portal…
I pass.
Im not going to buy this game.
But before people tear me to shreds for heresy, it will be OK!! There’s already thousands who will buy this game just because this game is part of the diablo franchise and for no other reason than that. Blizzard will definitely get their cash. Blizzard has many fan boys who will buy everything blizzard spits out, as the fan boys like to say: “Blizzard can do no wrong”.
The main reason im not buying D3?? Because its not Diablo anymore. Not in the spiritual sense. Sure you get to kill stuff and loot dungeons, sure the game has demons and skill sets. The story continues after part 2, sure. But the world, the characters, the stages, the lighting: everything that matters in the game is completely different and is actually based on a different game: its heavily influenced and stylized by world of warcraft. Not Diablo 2. The art style in Diablo 3 makes me feel too old to be playing it, wow isn’t my type of game.
I have no problem how they have added much more color to diablo 3, but the art style… All the giant objects and huge lines with simple designs have created too much of a “vivid fantasy” world. A child’s fantasy world to be exact. From a marketing perspective they are trying to get wow players to play diablo as well, by making it look and feel like wow. It doesn’t feel like diablo 2 or diablo 1 anymore.
Unfortunately this means that Hell levels and everything else will now artistically look like the telletubbies show. The dark horror elements of the first two brilliant masterpiece games (faded gritty colors and intricately small details) are nowhere to be found.
Thousands will buy this game thinking art doesn’t matter as long as game play is the same, then they will spend the next few months staring at vomit inducing splurges of neon colors and world of warcraft influenced characters before they come to the conclusion that their own opinions are overrated.
Oh well, there’s still Diablo 2, diablo 3 is just a video game after all so its not that big of deal. I’ve grown past the days when video games used to be my life. I’ll still be looking out for Diablo 4 though, when it is released in 2983, hopefully by then the art style will have gotten more consistent to its roots.
In the infamous words of Denzel Washington:”I’m getting too old…. For this shit”
@Duriel, what a long comment… I feel your pain though. Blizzard is definitely moving away from its core audience and trying to please teens everywhere.
In my eyes, it’s like Harley doing 50cc bikes, so they can steal market share from Honda’s scooter division.