And the Heavens shall Tremble!

Ahmed Shaikh, Jun 28, 2008 1701 hrs IST

Diablo III announced by Blizzard

Stay awhile and listen.

This just in, live from Blizzard's Worldwide Invitational event in Paris, France: Diablo III is real and coming soon. Here's what we know about the title:

It is first and foremost, a co-operative gaming title, more importantly it is still an RPG, not an MMORPG as the rumours had it, at least not this version.

Multiplayer will once again work over Battle.net. The scale of the enemies shown was enormous one demoded at the event about six or seven times the player.

The game retains its familiar interface: red health and blue mana orbs at the left and right sides of the screen, the same 3/4th perspective. New this time is a skill hot-bar along with the ability to cycle through skills using just the mouse wheel. Blizzard suggested that the game is easy to get into; it is possible to play the entire game using just the mouse, but the game offers enough depth to keep us interested. Game still appears to still have slot limits.

The Barbarian class was demoed (yes!): with 2 axes hacking at demons in what appeared to be a foggy cathedral. The character was shown using enchanted axes with frost and lighting. Also shown was a jumping attack where the Barabarian smashed the two axes into the ground. The class can hop across gaps on the map.

Armour is customized to each class. The Barbarian had a demon look with giant devil horns.

Enemies now drop red orbs which replenish some amount of health.

The environment will play a greater role in the game. Blizzard suggested that it will be destructible to an extent: both helping and hurting the player character. A chest can be trapped, for example, bookcases are still lootable ^_^

New class was also demoed: the Witch Doctor. This class was shown summoning (casting?) a locust swarm which spread and dealt damage. The class can also use buffs to his spells, for example the Doctor was shown summoning some dog-things which increased the locust swarm damage.

Deckard Cain is in! You will need to rescue him before he can pimp out the goodies. The game switches to a cool interface when talking to NPCs (non-playing characters). There's more story and questing in the game, always nice, with some scripted events thrown in for the cool-factor.

And that was about that!

Woohoo! It's here folks! Now we can all move on from anticipating its announcement to anticipating its release. The lucky guys and gals at the Paris event will get to play a 30-minute demo. Hopefully, we will get more info then. Meanwhile, we have some pretty poor quality screen-grabs from the live video stream. Enjoy!

EDIT
The Diablo III site is up. Check it out, video and all:
Diablo III website

USER COMMENTS

woo hoo! just got around finishing d2 once again, and now this! way to go!

by ax13, Mumbai, on Jun 29, 2008 11:47 PM, Report abuse Reply

i like

by afak, jaipur, on Jun 29, 2008 10:05 PM, Report abuse Reply

waiting for it

by nit_0099, Kolkata, on Jun 29, 2008 10:51 AM, Report abuse Reply

Thats a great news for gamers...kudos to blizzard team...

by Gamersworld, GamersCity, on Jun 28, 2008 06:57 PM, Report abuse Reply

"Game still appears to still have slot limits" I meant inventory slot limits, to clarify. Anyway, it's here!!

by ahmed, Bombay, on Jun 28, 2008 05:13 PM, Report abuse Reply

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