Jay Wilson, designer of "Diablo 3", confirmed to MTV Multiplayer that the character
class will not appear in the initial release of the game. They created a
different class called the Witch Doctor to take the
place of the Necromancer.

"Our approach for classes in 'Diablo III' is that we don't have a strong
desire to bring back classes from the previous game," Wilson told me. "The goal
is to try and give people new gameplay and not just re-hash old gameplay. We're
not just making a 'Diablo II' with updated 3D graphics."
"The problem was, we looked at the class and didn't think that
we could really make him a lot better," he explained. "We could add some new
stuff to him but for the most part, curses, corpse explosion, skeleton pets,
done. That's the class. We wanted to create new gameplay, so we chose to do the
Witch Doctor as a different kind of class."
He also unveiled something that looks like a hint of the Necromancer is
coming back one day.
Wilson added, "It's one of those things where, unless we put like 30
classes in the game, people are going to be unhappy. But if we put 30 classes in
the game, we'd hurt the game. I think that of the classes that we've chosen,
there will be something for everyone. I'm not worried that people won't be able
to find a class that they like to play."
Read More Here.
Resource:
MTV Multiplayer
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