Blizzcon 08: Diablo III Hands-On

At Blizzcon '08 in Anaheim, CA, WarCry Editor John "Can't Fake the" Funk gets some hands-on time with the first public build of click-fest dungeon-crawler, Diablo III.

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Did the destructible environment seem well intergrated into the game or was it more of a gimmick mechanism?

Also ENVY!

From what I saw, it was extremely well integrated. Little stuff like what I mentioned, where my Cleave attack did some collateral damage to a nearby wall, for instance.

I probably should of expanded a little more, what I mean is did you notice if the destructible parts that could kill monsters seemed to be set up at a large group of monsters or did they seem to be more randomly intergrated? Perhaps you didn't notice or pay particular attention to it with only two play throughs, just I was worried that the parts of destructible environment that you could take advantage of to kill monsters would be placed in predestined spots and be few and far between, more as set pieces to a dungeon rather then randomly generated extras.

Well, again it wasn't something I was paying TOO much attention to, but stuff like the chandelier in particular seemed fairly common. Actually, the first time I encountered it, I cut the cord, and then - not knowing what it was doing - ran forward so that it fell on *my* head, did a good deal of damage, and stunned me :P

CantFaketheFunk:
the chandelier in particular seemed fairly common. Actually, the first time I encountered it, I cut the cord, and then - not knowing what it was doing - ran forward so that it fell on *my* head, did a good deal of damage, and stunned me :P

Hehe, I will have to watch out for those when I eventually get my hands on the game/demo. Alright I have one more question then I will stop asking them because I could fill a book with the amount I have. Did the pace of combat match those of the teaser trailers out? Just curious because in the Barbarian one he seemed to be killing real well during the first part of the teaser but a bit later into the dungeon he got a full set of gear that the developers put in. Its also hard to tell from teaser trailers if Blizzard over geared there character to seem more 'killy' then they actually are. I'm sure because it is Blizzard that the pace will be just as fast as Diablo II but you have played it so you can hopefully set my mind to ease.

Absolutely. The pace of combat, especially as the Barb - with abilities that further increase attack speed, stacking as you use them - is really, really quick. Maybe it's naturally quicker as the Barbarian, to be fair, because the whole Fury thing they use instead of Mana means that it's to their benefit to keep on fighting.

Also, the whole "health gems" that enemies drop is nice, because there's much less of a reliance on potions.

The health gems do seem like a very good edition to the game, will defiantly help keep the combat going the first time though the game. It may however become problematic for the hardcore online gamers that rush their character though the game depending on the availability of potions. Which is what I intent to do after playing it offline once for the story. Bosses in Diablo II could be taken on at much lower levels then normal with a good supply of pots and possibly a prevent monster heal switch weapon in the nightmare and hell difficulties.

I think though that I read somewhere that they had or were considering putting a talent re spec into the game so even if potions are hard to come by and the second thing I fear, that they remove the ability to rush each other with higher level characters. That you would then only have to play through once for each character rather then having to make a character for every build you wish to try.

Well, Jay Wilson said that they weren't really happy with the reliance on potions in D2 - like, in PvP, it came down to whoever ran out of potions first lost. Which is why there's now a cooldown on pots, and they're much less prevalent. Honestly, while it's certainly a change from D2, I think it's a much, much better one.

And I remember hearing that builds weren't going to be permanent in D3 too, though it didn't come up at Blizzcon (from what I saw). That's a good point you make, though.