Diablo III's Jay Wilson Shared 7 Development Points

In a recent interview, Jay Wilson, the game director of Diablo III shared seven points for developing Diablo III: approachability, strong heroic feelings, free character customization, intense gaming process, repeatable gameplay, definite settings and cooperative battle.

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Jay Wilson

He revealed that Diablo III focused on developing new content including a 3D Engine which bolsters better performance of scenes, graphics and actions in the game and a Health Drops system which can help players restore their HP after killing monsters. In his opinion, the developers adopted the Health Drops system with the aim of helping players go on the game without waiting for the recovery of HP. In this way, if players want to restore their HP and gain equipment, they have to slay monsters, which is just what the developers advocate.

He also said that originally each class was different in terms of HP recovery speed, for example, melee classes that had to fight hand to hand with monsters had a high recovery speed, while mages had a relatively slow speed. To encourage players to battle side by side, now as long as they team up, all of teammates can recover their HP quickly through Health Drops.

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The seven development points run through Diablo III

Jay Wilson expressed, Diablo III is designed to redefine the gaming experience of Diablo series. Diablo I and Diablo II emphasized action scenes, but Diablo III intends to strengthen the game's depth so as to make it a better and more profound RPG. As the previous Diablo installments paid attention to action performance instead of role playing, the developers hope Diablo III can make progress in presenting the role-playing elements and absorb the essence of Diablo I and Diablo II at the same time.

It is the most important to determine what the essence of Diablo series is and know what has made Diablo I and Diablo II classical, Jay Wilson pointed out. If developers often review these points, they won't make mistakes and be entangled in trivial things during the development phase. They have summed up seven points for developing Diablo III: approachability, strong heroic feelings, free character customization, intense gaming process, repeatable gameplay, definite settings and cooperative battle.

When being asked about the release date of Diablo III, Jay Wilson answered with a smile, when it's done! Oh, please, we have heard it again and again!

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According to Jay Wilson, in order to make Diablo III approachable, developers employ a fixed perspective, mouse manipulation, distinct character types, a reality-based fantasy world and understandable game systems etc. with the hope of allowing people who play the game for the first time to know how to find monsters, cast skills and grind mobs as soon as possible. He said players would operate straight and find what they want to control in the game interface. The formerly inconvenient potion system and the same control of each class have also been modified. Diablo III will prepare unique skills for different classes and each class will be able to take diverse measures to cope with different situations. Furthermore, the specially designed quick-use bar will be corresponded with various skills so that players can flee, defend and cast skills more easily and directly.