Diablo 3 day. But first, trying to find F@#)%’*^(& parking!!! I missed the Starcraft 2 Lore panel. Whose bright idea was it to schedule it at noon, right in the middle of lunch? Both neighboring parking lots were closed off saying that they were full. Not true at all! There was plenty of parking on the top level. The exact same spot we parked in yesterday was empty. WTF! We finally parked across the way on Harbor Blvd. The clerk almost didn’t honor the free staff pass until I yelled at the guy. Not a good start to the day.
1:30 PM World of Warcraft Q/A, Hall C
BlizzCon Announcement: Mounts will be able to swim in water.
Something about Pandas so as not to upset the Chinese.
They want to revamp the dispel system so that you can keep the beneficial buffs using dispel to remove the negative ones.
World of Warcraft movie by Legendary Pictures - Go! Chris Metzen: ‘We’re working hard on it. It has a cool story. If I say anymore I’ll get shot. Have patience. Good things are coming.’
I didn’t understand any of the rest of it. I played Warcraft 3 but never World of Warcraft.
3:00 PM Diablo 3 Lore, Hall C
Diablo 3 is a unique world of horrific darkness. The designers hope to provide a backstory to every civilization. This may be done through character dialogue. Also using the environment as a tool to tell the story. You are free to explore as much or as little as you want in this action RPG.
Diablo 3 takes place 20 years after the events of Diablo 2. To the inhabitants, a whole generation has passed. Those with direct experience with past events are dead. Except for Deckard Cain, the last of the Horadrim, who is still alive somehow due to some sort of special clan arts. Cain feels guilty because he believes that he could have ended Diablo earlier. He’s exploring the world to find clues that would help when the day comes that the legions of hell would return.
Caldeum is a trade city build on materialism and the free flow of ideas.
As a contrast to Caldeum, Skovos is based off legend and mythology, equivalent to ancient Greece. You won’t be able to travel there but will hear about the place.
Diablo 1 and 2 were set in a gray backdrop. In Diablo 3, they respect the past artwork and still emphasize horror. But they will be updating the classic with a new visual look using big, bold shapes, strong silhouettes to avoid symmetry, and select color palettes of green, blue, and purple. It won’t look cartoony. The camera is fixed so they can hand craft each scene. Background movement (ground shaking) adds believability. There will be destructible objects such as chandeliers that you can drop on enemies.
Q/A
Is there going to be a secret cow level? Well, that would no longer be a secret would it…
Everyone is assuming Diablo is coming back. The story continues from the previous games. There won’t be any stuff thrown from left field. There will be a main storyline plus some random quests. Also class specific quests. The developers definitely want to bring closure to the story.
You’ll notice that there is class specific dialogue. The first mission NPC acts disrespectful towards Witch Doctors.
You can’t play as a necromancer. They were perfected in Diablo 2. Although you will meet necromancers in the world of Diablo 3.
At BlizzCon you could play one of the first dungeons, Sanctuary with three levels of catacombs. 4 player cooperative. Got to choose from a male or female Barbarian or Witch Doctor and female only Wizard. Since it was limited, I played the Wizard, but so did everyone else on the team. It ended up being 3 Wizards and 1 Witch Doctor. I went Battle Wizard like my Battle Sorceress in Diablo 2. Wizards have this slash attack that consumes mana. Wizard class couldn’t equip swords or lances. She could equip axe, mace, and knife. Inventory: Belt, Helm, Shield, Weapon, Boots, Armor, Shoulder, 2 Accessories, and Pants. Inventory equips change your appearance. As we progressed through the game, my clothes changed from red to blue. You couldn’t add to stats. But you choose your skills. In addition, the game engine seemed to keep track of your kill count possibly a bonus.
The boss was the Skeleton King. Within the level you find his crown and use that to initiate the boss sequence. I died against him and respawned at a checkpoint one floor above. You kept all your items. Didn’t have to go back naked and find your dead body as in Diablo 2.
I miss my Lightning Fury Amazon. They have to bring back some sort of ranged archer unit.
Diablo 3 Witch Doctor
6:00 PM Comedian Patton Oswalt
Not for kids. He cusses. He passes in my book. He made fun of the people sitting in the front row. One person was French. Said that the French make great porn and wines.
He talked about his first jokes he ever came up with, geek material. What if instead of Spiderman, he got bit by a Dung Beetle. You’d figure that if an industrial accident made you into a god, everyone in Russia would be hanging around the nuclear facilities.
Getting tired of all the people telling you that you’ve been wasting away your life playing World of Warcraft? Well, there are people who waste away their lives in reality. At least in Warcraft, you can pretend that you were a level 70 Warlock exploring the outskirts of Lordaeron. Who knows how many future Hitlers of the world have been prevented because of simply playing Warcraft in their basements.
Political jokes. Always a safe subject when you insult President Bush. Not as fun anymore because people have stopped defending Bush. Bush keeps saying that future generations will judge his presidency. It’s like the movie Blade Runner or Battlefield Earth. People will still say that is sucked. Bush also brags about getting 10 hours of sleep everyday and being at the peek of his physical and mental condition. Take a look at his speeches. That really is the best that he can do.
McCain’s Vietnam story is like the origin of every supervillain.
He makes a good point that when he was growing up he played Monopoly. But he never dressed up as Mr. Moneybags or as a green house or the shoe. In the same way, people dress up as Warcraft Night Elves.
Last joke about Yoshinoya beef bowls. Once you had one there is no seconds. The beef is like shoe laces dipped in air conditioning fluid. Then there’s this image of a face within the beef kinda like when people see the image of Jesus in a potato chip. The face tries to warn you last minute not to eat it.
I played Starcraft 2 single player just because the line was shorter at the time. It wasn’t a campaign mission but head to head against the computer. You choose the opponent’s race and difficulty level. I was Protoss versus Zerg on hard. Cannons saved me. I noticed the computer seemed confused; the first rush of Zerglings were hitting and running away from the cannons as they kept entering and exiting my base. Rushes soon grew more powerful with roaches and hydras. I ended up running out of minerals. I went for Dark Templars. They were ok until Overloads flew by revealing them. Had it gone on for more than 20 minutes I know I would have lost.
I’ll end with COSPLAY!!
Harpy
The angel Tyrael from Diablo. 3rd place winner of the Costume contest.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
