Gameplay Panel in Blizzcon 2010

出自【暗黑百科】DiabloWiki_凯恩之角

在2012年4月7日 (六) 10:07所做的修订版本 (查看源码) 叛教の巫师 (讨论 | 贡献) (→恶魔猎手的来源介绍) ←上一版本		在2012年4月7日 (六) 10:16所做的修订版本 (查看源码) 叛教の巫师 (讨论 | 贡献) (→Demon Hunter Skills) 下一版本→
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-	==Demon Hunter Skills==	+	==恶魔猎手的技能==
-	'''Wyatt Cheng - Technical Game Designer'''	+	'''怀亚特•陈 - 技术设计师/职业技能设计师'''<br>
		+	现在呢，我们已经基本确定恶魔猎手主要使用远程攻势，暗影技能，一些小道具和陷阱来打击敌人，但我们仍然需要结合以上几个特点来加入更多的让她看起来更真实的技能。那么下面让我们来谈谈关于猎手技能的细节。<br><br>
-	Now that we've established that the Demon Hunter is primarily about ranged, shadow, gadgets and traps. We need some skills that are going to bring that to life. We want skills that sell those three concepts. So the first skill we are going to talk about some of her skills.<br><br>	+	[[Bola Shot|流星索]] -- 这一招融入了远程攻势和小道具，恶魔猎手可以发射出一条连接着锁链的流星锤，将其缠绕在敌人身上并爆炸。但爆炸会有少许的时间延迟，因此玩家可以通过恰当的战术策略来使用这一招。
-	[[Bola Shot]] -- This mixes two themes, ranged and gadgets. She shoots out a bola which wraps around the target and explodes. It feels really tactical, it has a slight delay that you can use to your advantage in the right situations.	+	[[Vault|影轮翻]] -- 这是一个移动类型的技能。就像野蛮人有[[Leap Attack|跳跃攻击]]，法师有[[Teleport|传送]]技能一样，我们要确保所有职业都至少拥有一个可以瞬间远离危险区域的技能。我们想在这招上展现暗影能力，起初我们打算叫这招为暗影翻滚，但又来考虑到根本不需要把每个招式的类型通过名字来表现，只要做到一个完美的动作演示就足够了，因此我们就称其为[[Vault|影轮翻]]。这一招式的动作有点类似于杂技，同时能够表现出一个残影的形象，也正好突出了暗影的概念。其实这只是将模型进行一个机械式的旋转，同时制造出残影的样子，让其富有美感罢了。但我们相信玩家会对这个技能感兴趣的。
-	[[Vault]] -- This a movement skill. The Barbarian has Leap Attack, the Wizard has Teleport and we wanted to make sure all our classes had a way to get around the battlefield. In this skill we wanted to sell the Shadow theme. Initially we talked about Shadow Vault and stuff like that, but we decided to just call it Vault and let the art peak for itself. There's no need to have to weave these concepts into every single skill. The artistic representation has some acrobatics and has some shadow themes to it. It's basically a way to take a solid mechanic and wrap it up with the aesthetic we are trying to sell and deliver something we think will be fun for the players.	+	[[Spike Trap|尖刺陷阱]] -- 对于猎手来说，另一个需要体现的特点就是陷阱和道具。但这些特点并不同于大家原来玩的暗黑2里面的刺客。我们仍然决定对这一招采用暗影和道具的设计理念，我们只是使用了一个简单的陷阱并在上面加入了暗影的效果，用动画的渲染来突出她与其他职业的不同。对我来说，我很喜欢这个[[Spike Trap|尖刺陷阱]]，因为它让你感到有个提前设下陷阱的意识。我们想让玩家们了解这么一个情况；恶魔猎手就算在睡觉的时候都会梦到如何猎杀恶魔，当她在午夜惊醒时突然想到个猎捕恶魔的点子，“噢，我应该提前设下些陷阱才对，就让那些恶魔们自投罗网好了。”然后她就可以回去继续睡觉，当醒来时会发现那些设下的陷阱已经杀死了大批的恶魔。
-	[[Spike Trap]] -- One of her themes is going to be traps and gadgets. This is not unlike some of the Assassin gameplay you might have seen in Diablo 2. In this case we want to sell again the shadow theme and the gadgets theme. We just take an ordinary trap spell, weave in some Shadow themes and the art kind of brings out the flavour, differentiates her from the other characters. Another thing I really like about Spike Trap is it has that sense of preparation. We want the player to know that the Demon Hunter is somebody that goes to sleep at night and dreams about killing demons. She wakes up in the middle of the night and goes "Oh, I have this great idea for a trap that will be awesome for killing demons", goes back to sleep, wakes up and kills a lot of demons. That's her thing.	+	[[Grenades|手雷]] -- 这招主要是表现出远程攻击的概念。我很喜欢这招，因为游戏是采用3D引擎来制作各种效果的，所以你可以看到当手雷抛到地上或墙上时会有几个弹跳的效果。我相信聪明的玩家一定会将这招玩出花样，没准他们会将手雷丢向墙角，让它们弹回来造成更多更绚丽的攻击。事实上这个弹跳的动作也能展现出恶魔猎手的远程攻击，道具的使用，战术策略和准备工作。这一切都是提前预谋好的猎杀恶魔的方式。
-		+
-	[[Grenades]] -- Also selling the idea of ranged attacks is '''Grenades'''. I love this skill in our game because we have a 3D engine so you can actually bounce grenades off the walls and floors. I think it'll be an awesome way for players to come up with some creative uses for grenades, throwing them around corners. It actually bounces around and it shows, again, and it sells the Demon Hunter's themes - ranged attacks, gadgetry, preparation and planning. This is premeditated demon killing going on.	+
-		+
-	[[Multishot]] -- And finally I want to show you guys '''Multishot'''. Multishot some of you guys might remember from Diablo 2 but it's been amped up and brought to the next level for Diablo 3. We know that Multishot was a hugely popular skill in Diablo 2 so we wanted to bring back that mechanic that we know, the skill that people love but artify it up for something more appropriate.	+
		+	[[Multishot|多重射击]] -- 最后呢，我要给你们大家介绍一下多重射击，对于玩过暗黑2的玩家来说这招也许很熟悉，它确实是非常讨喜的招式，因此我们决定让它在暗黑3中继续延续，而且比之前有着更显著的效果。其实比起招式的伤害，大家更爱它那华丽的攻击效果吧。
		+	<br><br>
	==Skill System Overhaul==		==Skill System Overhaul==

---

在2012年4月7日 (六) 10:16所做的修订版本

本文内容正在施工中,敬请期待!

This is a transcript of the Gameplay Panel held at Blizzcon 2010 discussing the newly revealed Demon Hunter and changes made to the other four classes during the year.

目录 1 座谈会介绍 2 座谈会的参与者 3 为何将新职业设定为恶魔猎手？ 4 远程职业的想法与演变过程 5 恶魔猎手的演变过程 6 恶魔猎手的建模过程和模型动画 7 恶魔猎手的来源介绍 8 恶魔猎手的技能 9 Skill System Overhaul 10 New Class Skills 11 Traits 11.1 Making Numbers Awesome 12 The Talisman and Charms 13 Skill Runes 14 Specific Skill Rune Examples 15 Battle Arenas

座谈会介绍

暗黑3游戏介绍

星期五12pm，主要会谈内容

想要知道庇护所的英雄们接下来会发生什么有趣的故事吗？如果你想了解更多有关游戏发展的内容，那么各位暗黑粉丝们就不要错过这次座谈会。

会谈主题：

"来看看暗黑3设计团队是如何创造一个适合攻打地狱军团的新职业，并深入了解游戏设计师和美工师们创作的过程。"

座谈会的参与者

• 杰•威尔逊 - 游戏开发总监
• 凯文•马藤斯 - 首席内容设计师
  
• 克里斯汀•莱特纳 - 艺术总监
  
• 朱利安•洛夫 - 首席技术美工
  
• 怀亚特•陈 - 技术设计师/职业技能设计师
  
• 莱昂纳多•波亚斯基 - 首席世界设计师（背景和世界观）
  
• 保罗•大卫 - 首席角色美工师

为何将新职业设定为恶魔猎手？

杰•威尔逊 - 游戏开发总监

今天我们要介绍暗黑3中第五个，也就是最后一个职业：恶魔猎手。我们会介绍非常多的关于恶魔猎手的信息，当然包括最终选定这个职业的原因和有关她的一切消息。那么第一个要解释的内容就是“为何选定恶魔猎手为最后一职业？”。我知道你们大家或多或少地已经猜到了，我们会让最后一个职业使用弓箭，十字弓或者一些投掷性武器。你们这么猜很有道理，事实上我该说你们猜的很准确。确实，恶魔猎手完美的填补了远程职业的空档。其实打从一开始我们就已经决定好要塑造一个比较暴力的法师职业，一个魁梧的野蛮人和一个能召唤宠物的职业。同时也准备创造一个能使用传统的远程武器的职业。所以恶魔猎手这一职业是在初期就已经决定好了的，只是现在的她看起来和我们当初设计的有很大区别。

我们确实感受到了这个角色非常适合暗黑世界的背景。我们一直想创造一个比较阴暗的角色，一种近乎于痴狂的反派英雄角色。其实我们还蛮喜欢将她打造成一位赏金猎人的想法。正是这个想法驱使我们对这一职业进行更多的修改和完善。由此我们让这个角色看起来是可以熟练猎杀敌人的英雄。

每当在决定是否采用一个职业的时候，我们都会仔细琢磨关于这个职业的三个重要的条件。首先要考虑的事，其实还算蛮明显的，我们之前就知道需要一个传统的远程职业，这个职业当然要会使用远程的武器。同时，我们也喜欢将其塑造成赏金猎人的想法，那就意味着可以加入一些小工具和陷阱的使用。而且这位猎人时刻都在准备着，也是渴望去投入战斗。所以我们结合了以上几个特点并将其融入进角色的设计中。

暗黑3中的各职业已经设计得非常出色了，但我们还是一直在寻找一种能将角色塑造得更绝妙的方式。这回恶魔猎手则被赋予了暗影魔法。这种魔法有助于她更高效率地猎杀敌人，也就是说她并不排斥使用暗黑类的魔法进行攻击。比如说她提炼出恶魔的内脏并将其中的物质注入十字弓中，箭矢的发射速度将会提升20%。她熟悉所有猎杀恶魔的诀窍，因为在暗黑世界中没有人比她更了解恶魔了。

远程职业的想法与演变过程

克里斯汀•莱特纳 - 艺术总监

我准备简单的介绍一下设计恶魔猎手的演变过程。一开始呢，我们就已经决定要创造一个类似游侠的远程职业。其实职业的设计和逐步地改善耗费了大量时间，最终我们能够确保玩家在玩这个职业的时候会感到很大的乐趣。起初，我们的设计理念是来源于林地游侠，在图片中可以看到他有很明显的远程职业的代表性，你甚至还能看到他身后背着的弓和箭矢。

虽然我们很喜欢这个初期的设定，也认为它是很好的设计想法，但我们一直提醒自己，这个角色的动作还不够敏捷，也没有给敌人致命打击的感觉。因此，就算我们给这个角色加入更多的设计元素，也还是与我们理想中的样子相差甚远。

尽管我们对图片中角色的形象感到满意，他综合了几个很棒的点子，不过看起来还是感觉缺少点儿什么。其实我们也不太确定到底应该再加入些什么样的元素，因为每当加入一些新的元素，新的点子，这个角色就开始发生转变。在我们所设计的大多数职业当中，都是加一点额外的设计元素，做一点改变，逐渐地让这些角色变成我们想要的样子。在这个角色的设计案例中，我们开始加入了一些近战的元素，比如说短匕首，短剑，拳套，你甚至还能看到图片中的角色穿着胸甲。

正如我上面所说的，我们尝试增加了更多不同的新元素，包括给这个远程职业带上了一顶头罩。我想你们也都看到我们是如何不停地做更改的。而这时我们突然意识到，在给他做这些改变，加入新想法的时候，他已经不再像原来的远程职业了。这个角色开始变得越来越像个暗杀者，还有点近战职业的感觉。因此我们就告诫自己，是时候需要暂停来休息一下了，我们应该放慢速度，重新审视一下我们所做的设计和改变。

恶魔猎手的演变过程

我们决定找出更多的设计理念，并且试着回想最开始的想法，重新审视一下我们到底想把这个职业塑造成什么样子。与此同时，我们反问了自己几个问题；第一，我们已经在去年的会议上公布了武僧这个职业，而现在我们很想创造一个有着黑暗一面的职业。第二，我们很希望这个职业看起来非常的神秘，你甚至不知道他们身处何方，不了解他们心里想的是什么，当然更不清楚有关他们的来历。另外比较重要的一点：作为暗黑2的超级粉丝，我们希望新的职业可以比较复古，有点中世纪的哥特风格，这样也可以发扬暗黑2中某些职业的特点。当然了，最重要的就是我们得确保这个职业是有远距离的攻击范围，所以最后确定的角色形象就是如今大家所看到的恶魔猎手了。

那么来说说我们是如何创造一个恶魔猎手的。首先，我们展开了各种可以联想到的设计概念，甚至包括了一个很疯狂的想法，我们假设如果这个猎手是流有恶魔之血的人类呢？就像左图显示的是一个设计得比较完善的恶魔形象，一个专门猎杀恶魔的恶魔。其实我们很喜欢这个设定，因为他看起来很有意思。但却存在两个问题；一个是在暗黑世界的背景中，我们的英雄必须是人类，因为要靠他们去对抗成群的敌人和恶魔，所以将其中一位英雄设定为恶魔是有驳于故事背景的安排。而另一个问题就是；之前我们也有想过可以将其设定为拥有恶魔血统或者可以改变自身形态的，类似于变形人的形象，所以我们想将他身体的一部分融入恶魔的样子。由此大家可以在右边的设计概念图中，看到一个有着恶魔之手的高大的恶魔猎人，在这一想法上，我们确实有些顾虑，因为如果这家伙突然出现在小镇上，准备向商人出售物品或者买些装备，那些居民很有可能都不敢靠近他，甚至会向看怪物一样的去打量他的手臂。而且他的体型确实太过庞大了，我们并不确定他能否像我们期望的那样有敏捷的身手，可以快速的移动。还有他的手臂又过于强大看上去像个善于近战的类型，但这并不适合我们对这个职业所做的设定。

最终我们还是将之前的所有设定都给改了，现在得到的是脱去披风，行动更加敏捷的样子，我们还给她穿上了只覆盖到肋骨部分的胸甲，让她的动作看起来更加轻盈有力。为了能让猎手看起来更酷，我们决定要让她两手各持一把十字弓。其实我们还在对是否将她的手臂魔化的设定而感到犹豫不决，因为当我们在移除这个设定时，突然发现玩家也许会想要尝试使用恶魔之手去打击敌人的感觉。但考虑到这将会影响我们对这个角色必须为人类的设定，最终我们只能彻底打消了这个念头。从而回到了最初的设定阶段，大家可以从图片中看到，她有着神秘的外观，头戴着遮住脸的头罩，看样子更接近黑暗的角色。她看起来身手依旧敏捷，移动速度非常地快，而且我们确实感受到了她那种略带神秘的中世纪风格，有点黑暗的氛围同时也近乎反英雄的感觉。而最重要的就是；她看起来非常符合我们对这个远程职业的定义。

恶魔猎手的建模过程和模型动画

保罗•大卫 - 首席角色美工师

下面让我来介绍一下有关恶魔猎手的建模过程，外观细节和动态演示。我知道我们的艺术总监Christian并没想让这个角色看起来很性感，从他设计的那种光明形象的武僧，有点让人毛骨悚然的巫医和女性野蛮人就能看出他想要的风格。当然这些人物设计得都很出色，但我们还是想让这位猎手拥有女性特有的魅力。不过别担心，我们不会只做女性形象的，事实上我们正在研究如何塑造男性恶魔猎手的形象，同时也会让他看起来非常吸引人的。

很显然，她的设计原型还是有点争议的，但我很还是想将她塑造成一个类似于黑暗的英雄。正像Christian说的，现在我们有了一个光明的武僧，一个华丽的法师，而相比较猎手而言，她就只是看起来很酷而已。所以我们又再次审视自己，到底怎么样才能将她装扮起来，如何才能让她看起来上升一个层次。由此我们开始设想给她增添一些像兜帽的装备，令她看起来与其他职业有明显的区别。随后，开发小组就决定专注于下面的三个方面来做设计；第一，这个角色应该有一条围巾，当她跑动或者穿梭于众多敌人之中的时候，你可以看到她飘动的围巾，这样可以让你的角色很显眼不至于找不到她。通过游戏画面，你也可以看出来恶魔猎手的腿部不同于法师或者武僧，我们连她的手臂也都武装上了，这样让她的外观看起来多一些“流行”的味道。

在我们制作每一个角色模型的时侯，首先要做的是被称为“裸装造型”的界面。这个主要用于查看角色穿戴装备的样子，我们可以将所有装备一起投入到这个动画演示中，同时也可以获取人物的姿势和动作，以便我们可以做进一步的调整。有趣的是，在开发团队内部你将是第一次看到这个角色的真实外观，然后你可以提出一些看法和意见。因此，基于这个形象的动画雏形来说，我们意识到了很多问题，比如说她的外观；相对于暗黑系列的角色来说她还是可以更轻便一些，而且我们也需要投入更多的意见和想法去完善她。至少对于创建一个模型的立场来说，还有很多值得讨论的东西。

现在看到的人物形象，身上装备着好多小零件，小饰物。也许你没办法看清楚全部的细节，但当你拉近30英尺的时候，再来看这个模型，你就能看到在她头部上方的更多细节。因此我们一起合作为她做了更多的细节调整，上色等工作。

现在呢，我们已经完成了建模步骤，同时也对这个恶魔猎手的模型感到满意。接下来技术师们开始为她创作更多的，看起来很酷的动作和姿势，并且为她穿戴好各种武器和装备进行演示。很显然，她被赋予了使用弓箭和十字弓的能力，而且也是唯一一个能双手各持一把十字弓的角色。从这么一个角色的建立，你就能看出我们大家是如何分工工作的，为了完成一个角色我们尽量将她的动作和姿势拿捏准确。比如说，单纯的扣动十字弓扳机的动作也许不像挥舞一把大斧和剑那样爽快，但我们确实在加强恶魔猎手的身体动作和姿势，让她看起来能够做出真实的射箭动作，并以此看出她技能的特点和优势。

恶魔猎手的来源介绍

莱昂纳多•波亚斯基 首席世界设计师（背景和世界观）

我将带你一起去了解有关恶魔猎手的背景和她们的故事。

恶魔猎手是所有职业中最具特色的一个，为什么这么说呢？因为她并不是某个来自社会群体或部族的人物，她有可能是任何人生突然受到改变的人的归宿。这些猎手们是被选中的，她们并不像其他四个职业一样生来就是注定好了的。她们是注定与仇恨牵绊在一起的，她们渴望复仇，渴望去猎杀那些残害了她们全家人的恶魔。恶魔猎手们通常会收养或聘用那些被恶魔杀害了家人和受到恶魔伤害的年轻人。她们已经没有了属于自己的家乡，她们一直流浪在世界各地寻找恶魔并猎杀它们。她们活着的唯一目的就是猎杀和打击所有的恶魔，不过她们也会在边境之地的北方对新的成员进行训练。

想想看，如果你能结合一个游侠和赏金猎人最出色的特点，双手各持一把十字弓，轻松地解决掉阻挡在眼前的任何威胁，出色的完成史诗般的复仇任务。我想说，要是你能做到这些，还需要其他的追求吗？！

那么是什么原因造就了这么独特的恶魔猎手呢？她们是非常执着的英雄，为了将庇护所的恶魔消灭干净她们甘愿付出一切。我们将猎手塑造成黑暗英雄的形象，想展现她们那种甘愿走入黑暗，甚至不惜玷污双手去复仇的品性。但我们并不希望看到她们被魔化，不想让她们拥有恶魔的血统或者长有恶魔的手臂。因此我们返回了最初的人类设定，并赋予她发光的双眼，来表明她即使在任何困境也不会迷失自己。

She's a stalker of demons, she uses traps and gadgets and lies in wait for demons, she really wants to strike terror into their hearts. She wants demons to feel what they usually cause in human beings, she wants them to know the terror of being stalked. Finally, she realises the true stakes of what's going on. All the other classes have their own reasons for doing what they are doing. The Witch Doctor and the Monk are in it for their religious ideals, the Wizard is in it for personal gain, the Barbarian is in it for his people but the Demon Hunter is in it for one thing only and that is killing demons. She understands the true stakes of the eternal conflict between the high heavens and the burning hells and she's going to do whatever she can to ensure hell doesn't get a foothold in Sanctuary.

恶魔猎手的技能

怀亚特•陈 - 技术设计师/职业技能设计师
现在呢，我们已经基本确定恶魔猎手主要使用远程攻势，暗影技能，一些小道具和陷阱来打击敌人，但我们仍然需要结合以上几个特点来加入更多的让她看起来更真实的技能。那么下面让我们来谈谈关于猎手技能的细节。

流星索 -- 这一招融入了远程攻势和小道具，恶魔猎手可以发射出一条连接着锁链的流星锤，将其缠绕在敌人身上并爆炸。但爆炸会有少许的时间延迟，因此玩家可以通过恰当的战术策略来使用这一招。

影轮翻 -- 这是一个移动类型的技能。就像野蛮人有跳跃攻击，法师有传送技能一样，我们要确保所有职业都至少拥有一个可以瞬间远离危险区域的技能。我们想在这招上展现暗影能力，起初我们打算叫这招为暗影翻滚，但又来考虑到根本不需要把每个招式的类型通过名字来表现，只要做到一个完美的动作演示就足够了，因此我们就称其为影轮翻。这一招式的动作有点类似于杂技，同时能够表现出一个残影的形象，也正好突出了暗影的概念。其实这只是将模型进行一个机械式的旋转，同时制造出残影的样子，让其富有美感罢了。但我们相信玩家会对这个技能感兴趣的。

尖刺陷阱 -- 对于猎手来说，另一个需要体现的特点就是陷阱和道具。但这些特点并不同于大家原来玩的暗黑2里面的刺客。我们仍然决定对这一招采用暗影和道具的设计理念，我们只是使用了一个简单的陷阱并在上面加入了暗影的效果，用动画的渲染来突出她与其他职业的不同。对我来说，我很喜欢这个尖刺陷阱，因为它让你感到有个提前设下陷阱的意识。我们想让玩家们了解这么一个情况；恶魔猎手就算在睡觉的时候都会梦到如何猎杀恶魔，当她在午夜惊醒时突然想到个猎捕恶魔的点子，“噢，我应该提前设下些陷阱才对，就让那些恶魔们自投罗网好了。”然后她就可以回去继续睡觉，当醒来时会发现那些设下的陷阱已经杀死了大批的恶魔。

手雷 -- 这招主要是表现出远程攻击的概念。我很喜欢这招，因为游戏是采用3D引擎来制作各种效果的，所以你可以看到当手雷抛到地上或墙上时会有几个弹跳的效果。我相信聪明的玩家一定会将这招玩出花样，没准他们会将手雷丢向墙角，让它们弹回来造成更多更绚丽的攻击。事实上这个弹跳的动作也能展现出恶魔猎手的远程攻击，道具的使用，战术策略和准备工作。这一切都是提前预谋好的猎杀恶魔的方式。

多重射击 -- 最后呢，我要给你们大家介绍一下多重射击，对于玩过暗黑2的玩家来说这招也许很熟悉，它确实是非常讨喜的招式，因此我们决定让它在暗黑3中继续延续，而且比之前有着更显著的效果。其实比起招式的伤害，大家更爱它那华丽的攻击效果吧。

Skill System Overhaul

Kevin Martens - Lead Content Designer

On the second part of the show we have a lot of new and improved skills and skill systems and other character things to show you. On the new side we are going to show you a complete overhaul of the skill system itself, new class skills for each of the classes, a new trade system and an introduction of the ever elusive Talisman.

So when you have a bunch of skills like Wyatt was showing you the next thing we need to work on is to make them deep and replayable and to make them accessible and on that end let's break down the skill UI from last year and talk about some of the problems we had with it.

This is the one we had last year (left)and it was just big. All the choices were there at once, you could see the whole tree, which was a good thing but it covered your character, it encouraged people to spend their skill points too widely and experienced Diablo players know fewer skills and spend more deeply into them. It had these three different class lines which were a little arbitrary and we learned that a little bit later. So we took this and wondered how we could make this more accessible without losing any of the depth. So we went to a tab system that was improvement in a major way, it made everything bigger, you could see it all. It compartmentalized into the tabs but with all these skill lines, fitting them all in there to be equal across all the tabs and some of the skills were a little arbitrary, you still couldn't see all your options at once and you had to skip back and forth between the tabs. People often, when they were leveling up, forgot to check on the other tabs and ended up spending more points in whichever tab they first chose to spend points in.

So we went to a list approach. With this we were getting a little bit closer. On the left hand side we had all seven of your skills in one place. This was a major improvement for us, you could see your entire character build all in one place and on the right, when you were choosing new skills, it was getting better you could see everything bigger, you could see what you could choose next and you could start thinking ahead by scrolling down the list but it wasn't quite good enough.

Here is the current UI. We kept everything with the seven skills on the left and on the right hand side we made that window a whole lot bigger so you could still plan ahead but you could see all your choices available at one time making the entire skill UI a lot more accessible. At a glance you could see what you could spend.

This became very straight forward, this UI idea that at a glance you know what to do. You look on your left and you can choose a new skill or spend points in your old skills. This was good. If you can see a blinking plus sign that means you can spend points in it, if there's no plus sign that means you've maxed it out. Now a little extra insight into the seven skills. At the beginning of the game every skill that you choose has five skill points that you can put into it but throughout the course of the game you have ways to deepen that and augment the skills so that you can spend more points into them, So, initially, it's much easier to make builds, it's easier to thinking ahead, to respec when you want to do that as well and you can try a lot of things very rapidly. But there's a lot more to the skill system than just this.

New Class Skills

Wyatt Cheng - Technical Game Designer

We've also been working on fleshing out and getting new skills for the four classes we had already announced and we want to show you some of those today.

Barbarian

We knew that he needed a ranged attack so here is an example of Ancient Spear. We don't want to turn the Barbarian into a ranged class so this is something that feels very appropriate for him. We want to sell the theme that he's strong, he's tough, he's melee so we had to come up with something that felt appropriate for that.

Wizard

We are going to bring him back another fan favourite, the same way we brought back Multishot, bring back Meteor. Meteor was also a popular skill in Diablo 2. People liked it, we liked the gameplay of it so we brought it back, artified it up and I tell you right when you get some runes in Meteor it's five times the fun.

Witch Doctor

I alluded to it earlier, that we want some movement options for every class and Spirit Walk is the movement skill for the Witch Doctor. We wanted something that stays thematically consistent for every class and in the Witch Doctor's case, he's about spirits and voodoo so in the Spirit Walk ability where he turns incorporeal, he can walk around, through enemies, walk round corners and when Spirit Walk ends he comes back in his physical form that becomes teleported to wherever his Spirit form is when Spirit Walk ended.

Monk

Wave of Light. He summons a mystical bell that he shoots out at range. It's kind of a combination of a melee and ranged attack. One of the things that I really like about this skill is that we need to differentiate the Barbarian from the Monk, they are both melee classes and in his case he's abbot combining mystic arts with martial arts and I like the evocative imagery that happens here. The concept of a mystical bell that he fires off, it's very vivid.

Traits

Jay Wilson - Game Director

I'm going to tell you about a new system that we've introduced into Diablo 3 in the last year. It's called Traits.

Essentially they are passive skills. They are a way you can customise and modify and essentially role play with your character and diversify your character builds. You can them as you level up, every other level, you don't get a point in every level but it's every odd numbered level you get a Trait Point. The goal of these is to alter your core attributes and aspects of your character. If you have a Barbarian and you want to be stronger there is a Trait for that. If you have a Wizard and you want to focus a lot more on elemental skills you have a Trait for that. A lot of it is also to take the opportunity to add flavour to the game world so every Trait has, in addition to just instructions on what it does it has a little excerpt of some flavour text that tells you about the world and it also was designed as a skill that tells you something about your character and your class.

Here's a Trait example for the Barbarian called Inner Rage. This highlights something really important about Traits, they are not universal to all classes. Every class gets Traits that are unique to them, there are some that carry over that make sense but for the most part they are very unique to the each class.

Here's a Trait example for the Barbarian called Inner Rage. This highlights something really important about Traits, they are not universal to all classes. Every class gets Traits that are unique to them, there are some that carry over that make sense but for the most part they are very unique to the each class. We want to sell the idea that the Barbarian, is not only an angry dude, you probably have figured that out already but he actually gets power through his rage.

For the Wizard, a lot of the Traits take on a more mystical bent, we want to make sure we sell the idea that even when the Wizard's not casting magic missiles or summoning up tornados that there's something just inherently magic about her. Here we have a Trait called Prismatic Cloak that essentially makes all of her armour spells more powerful and it's the idea that she's just focused on this one ability such that's she's amped them up and, again, we put some player text that sells the idea of if you choose to be this kind of Wizard this is who you are.

Well, why did we decide to do this system. There's a bunch of reasons. The main one is character customisation and those of you who know and love the original Diablo and Diablo 2 know that character customisation is a huge part of the game and if you're new to Diablo that's what it's all about so that was a big focus for us. We used to have a system in Diablo 2 where you could spend attribute points on all your core attributes and this system was much loved as a customisation tool but in actuality when we looked at it most of the builds took the exact same points in the exact same areas even across the classes and so we didn't feel like it was a good customisation system. Traits is really to specifically address the removal of attribute point spending.

As I mentioned before, you want a really strong Barbarian, somebody who hits really hard and is really tough. There's Traits for that. You can take Legendary Might which increases your strength, you can take Iron Skin which gives you more actual armour but let's say you want a Berserker Barbarian, you care more about attack rate, hitting the enemy before they can hit you back well there are Traits that can increase your attack rate, increase the power of debuffs on enemies. More variety equals more builds. Every class has now roughly 30 Traits and those Traits you can spend 1 to 5 points in them, that adds up to roughly right now 90 points per character. When you consider you can only get about 29 or 30 Trait Points it's a lot of customisation. Even if we look at this and decide it's too many Traits we'll just reduce the point spending in it because we want to keep the customisation really high.

One of the last reasons we really wanted to do this was it was always a bad decision to make in the previous skill trees where you knew that a passive skill like "if I take this it gives me more armour", that's a good skill and mathematically it makes sense but maths kind of sucks. If Diablo is the active skill then this guy's passive. I want to spend points in Whirlwind, I don't want to spend points in more armour so by separating the passive skills from the move active active skills which now completely take up the skill system we get a much better decision point.

Making Numbers Awesome

So the last thing is making numbers awesome. How do you make maths cool. We tried to set it on fire and put skulls behind it, that makes it pretty cool but it wasn't really enough. A lot of the design behind the Trait system is if we're going to have you take a passive Trait I don't want it to be like oh if you if you take this Trait you get 0.1% more armour. 0.1% doesn't sound very awesome so for us it's like no, it's a big number, it's 25, 500, a 100% more. Whatever number basically sounds cool when we get it. So we're really working on the system to make sure these don't feel like weird numbers that you're not really sure what they do. Diablo customisation is very straight forward. The idea is very simple to grasp and that's important to us.

We don't consider the system done yet, I love to share our process with you. What's on our 'to do' list? Well the UI's not awesome and it's okay for me to say that because I designed it. It's just a grocery list right now and it's not very fun to use. Gaining them (Trait Points) every other level isn't perfect, it may be fine we may ship with that. Right now it feels a little weird like you almost don't know when you Trait Points are going to show up and that doesn't feel awesome. There's probably too many of them. When I talk about making numbers awesome, if you go and play with the Trait system, because it's fully playable on the floor you're going to say, "Hey, I thought he said the numbers were going to be awesome, this just seems like too much decisions or too low in numbers". The truth is you're probably right. We're looking at that now and saying maybe we didn't quite get it right.

The Talisman and Charms

Kevin Martens - Lead Content Designer

Before we get into the Talisman I want to talk about Charms from Diablo 2. The charm system, if you are not familiar with it, was a very simple cost benefit thing. There were these objects that would sit in your inventory, they would take up some of your inventory space but they would give you a wide variety of bonuses. This was good, we liked the concept behind the system and we liked the charms themselves but what it led to was people keeping as many charms as they could and keeping a tiny bit of inventory space and we didn't think that was a great choice to have to make. You couldn't resist taking the charms because it augmented your build so well. How do we solve this? The Talisman is a dedicated inventory for your charms and not only that it gets bigger over time, it keeps all of the advantages of the Diablo charm system. You have more charms that you can fit in there so you still have to pick and choose which ones you're going to have to augment your build.

So now that we had a better spot to put your charms we wanted to work on the charms themselves. So how have charms evolved? The bonuses for Charms in Diablo 2 were very varied, incredibly varied, there was almost no kind of bonus they didn't have and in Diablo 3 we are going to have them concentrate on your core attributes so this is very much about customising your build, about augmenting what weaknesses you have and making your strengths better etc. The charms are going to be a core part of your build so they are still very important and there are different tiers of them throughout the game so as you go forward you're going to be playing with your charms a lot. As you choose new skills you'll be choosing different charms to try to make up for the options you chose.

Skill Runes

• See the Video: Blizzcon 2010 Rune Effects article for a fan video, tightly focused on the screen during this portion of the panel.

We haven't talked about Runes for quite a while, in fact we gave them the year off last year to let them percolate a little bit but they are back and they are in the game and you can play them here at the show. They are fully implemented in the Witch Doctor, the Wizard and Barbarian and I urge you to play the game and give Skill Runes a try.

Just a quick update to get you up to speed to where we are with Runes. If you remember Runes are a system for modifying your skills, they drop in the world like gems do but instead of putting them into your items to modify what your items do you put these in your skills and modify what your skills do. Skill Runes are a huge feature for your characters. Usually when we think about customisation people think about things like skin colour or hair style or maybe gear but the skills that you pick for your character are a huge part of your character customisation.

I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about. Take an Amazon, we didn't just make Sorceresses or Barbarians, we made Spearzons, Frenzy Barbs, Nova Sorceresses, things like that. We are really going to blow the lid off this idea with Skill Runes by providing a whole lot more builds. How many more builds are we going to provide? I kind of got curious about this so I enlisted the help of some programmers to give me some help because I blow things up for a living and they came back with this outrageous number. 96,886,969,344 builds per class.

That's a really big number and hard to wrap your head around so let me try to clarify what we are talking about. This is the number of skill combinations with runes that you can have per class, this does not include things like traits, gear, dyes, charms, this is purely active skills. You are really going to be able to come up with a tonne of different kinds of class combinations. It's not just about numbers skill runes are going to be able to provide a whole lot more and one of the key things to keep in mind here is that skill runes don't just change what a skill does they have the potential to change the way it looks.

Originally we weren't thinking about having different graphics for every skill rune choice because it's a tonne of work so we thought we'd just do the ones that sound interesting. What we found along the way was that if we didn't have a graphical change the skill rune just felt weak or even broken and we found that everyone at the office would gravitate toward the skill runes that had graphic changes. This really comes down to a fundamental question which is that we could just change all the numbers underneath, give you a numerical change or we could have the screen filled with zombie bears and which would you rather have? Zombie Bears of course.

We still have five times the skill Runes only they have now changed their names. They are now called Crimson, Indigo, Obsidian, Golden, Alabaster. We had a system before where we named the runes according to the concept attached to them like Multistrike or Energy and Multistrike Runes did Multistrike things and Energy Runes did stuff with your resources. What we found was that we kept coming up with ideas that didn't fit with those concepts very well. At first we would have some concepts that would fit really well, we'd get some things that did a multishot and they would fit but when you started coming up with wacky ideas it became harder to shoehorn them into that system.

To give you an example here. The Witch Doctor's new skill called Poison Dart and that kind of fit with the Power Rune before but then we changed the skill so we had another version that would make it a rapid-fire skill and then it worked really well with Multistrike but then we had this wacky idea of the Witch Doctor being able to shoot a live snake that would attach itself to monster's faces and stun them. Where does that fit? It doesn't fit anywhere so we just changed the names of the runes then we can come up with as many kinds of wacky ideas as we want.

Specific Skill Rune Examples

Skills Runes on Witch Doctor Skills

Crimson - Fire Damage	Golden - Mana Recovery	Obsidian - Slow Enemies	Indigo - Rapid Fire
Alabaster - Snakes on a face?

Runes now have ranks. There are seven ranks which increase as you progress through the game. Runes take whatever the rune does to a particular skill and make that attribute extreme. To see how the skill runes affect the skill let's look at the Wizard's Magic Missile. Unruned it shoots one missile when cast, when we put a rank one indigo rune in it and now it shoots missiles per cast and then he's rank seven and you're going to need that in hell.

Here we have a skill for the Barbarian called Weapon Throw, allows him to throw a big weapon and this is the Crimson Rune, it just adds more damage, makes Weapon Throw a kind of one shot skill and then another (Obsidian) that let's you throw a hammer that stuns characters which is great for PvP. Another (Alabaster) that causes confusion which is a good crowd control version and then we have one (Indigo rune) that ricochets which is good for AoE. Then we thought it would be really cool for the Barbarian to have an ability to throw a corpse (Golden Rune).

Skills Runes on Barbarian Skills

Crimson - More Damage	Obsidian - Stuns Targets	Alabaster - Confuses Targets	Indigo - Ricochet
Golden - Corpse Throw

Next up is the Wizard and we brought back Hydra for the Wizard and it works just like the skill in Diablo 2. Crimson Rune changes them to Frost Hydras with a short range breath attack. Then we brought in a Lightning Hydra, lightning hydras never miss. Next up we have an Arcane Hydra (with Alabaster rune) which shoots miniature arcane orbs for AoE damage. Then we did an Acid Hydra (Obsidian rune) because melting monsters is a lot of fun and finally one big hydra head but with the firewall attribute

Skills Runes on Wizard Skills

Crimson - Chilling breath	Indigo - Lightning	Alabaster - Arcane	Obsidian - Acid
Golden - Fire Walls

Skills Runes on Wizard Skills (Plague of Toads)

Next up let's look at Plague of Toads on the Witch Doctor. The Crimson Rune makes all of your frogs on fire and then something a little more gameplay oriented, you've got mana reduction (Golden rune) so you can have a lot more frogs and then Alabaster rune will blind monsters which gives you some crowd control ability and then we change the skill completely and make a toad blizzard (Indigo rune) then finally we wanted to have a giant toad (Obsidian rune) but what's he going to do? He's going to eat monsters and he digests them but he doesn't digest the loot.

Crimson - Fire Damage	Golden - Mana Recovery	Alabaster - Blinding Gas	Indigo - Rain of Toads
Obsidian - Giant Toad

Battle Arenas

Jay Wilson - Game Director

Battle Arenas are our first approach to PvP and hopefully not our last. The vision for Battle Arenas is a dedicated place for all your dueling needs. Dueling was a massive part of Diablo 2 and a lot of people really loved to duel. We know you like to kill each other and Diablo 2 didn't support it very well, so were really focused from the very beginning to make sure we corrected that mistake. It's focused on team-based play and the reason for this is, as Julian mentioned, we had 97 billion builds and the idea that every build is perfectly balanced versus every other build is not going to happen. We definitely want to get all the class balance a lot better than it was in Diablo 2 but the idea is that some of the builds are supposed to be better than others, that's the point, you're supposed to try and find the best PvP build. So focusing on more team-based play softens that issue a little bit, that issue of balance. Maybe if you go into the Arena and you face a build you are weak to your team mates can help you make up for that. It becomes more than just about your own build but your teams' build.

A lot of the Arenas is about building the perfect PvP character so you will be taking characters that you get in PvE, items, skills, trades, everything you do and taking it over into the Battle Arena. It is definitely a game about building a PvE character into a PvP monster.

Here is the Witch Doctor and Wizard show off a bunch, we got some Zombie Bears in there. That's a crowd favourite. Blizzard which is a great crowd control and attack spell, Teleport which the Wizard uses in just a second, Meteor. There are a lot of awesome skills and a lot of them worth great across both PvE and PvP and some of them are design specifically for PvP. If you've ever looked at any of the skills we've shown at the previous Blizzcons and didn't know how you'd use that in PvE it actually might be PvP skill because several of them we specifically focus for there.

The PvE game has a lot of control in it, there's a lot of freezing enemies and stomping on the ground and stunning everything but we didn't want the PvP game to be all about crowd control where you would basically be sitting around waiting for the opportunity to move so a big part of our PvP design is about counters, counters that break you out of any kind of crowd control.

Here we have the Witch Doctor using Horrify to Fear the Barbarian and the Barbarian is using Ignore Pain to break out of that. There's also tonnes of cool tricks. For for example we can teleport, freeze, Meteor and "bye bye".

The Arenas is fully playable on the floor so we encourage you to go over, reach out and beat the crap out of your friend.

We set up a round mechanic and essentially the goal of this is, when we played the game one round was never enough we would see what the other team was but we didn't have a chance to react to that so the game is played as the best of 2 out of 3 or, 3 out of 5. We haven't figured out exactly what the great round count is but we are going to be working on that and would appreciate feedback on that.

We are going to do a lot of focus on battle.net with the Arenas and PvP, we will have matchmaking so you will be able to form a team or randomly jump in. It will be skill-based so we'll try and match teams equally against one and other. We are trying to figure out a way to do custom games. We know that while our Arenas are team-based there are a lot of you who are going to want to do a specific team against your friends' specific team and maybe outside of the ranking systems. You're going to want to do one on ones even though the game is not going to be super great balanced for that. We know you're going to want to do it so we're definitely focused on finding a way to make that really easy for you to do.

The last one is more of a progression-based ranking system. If you play Starcraft 2 you know it's very much what we call a skill-based ranking system where, when you play against one and other, you each get a rank and if you're rank is higher you get to make fun of your friend. We want you to be able to make fun of your friends but here's it's more about doing it in the Arenas. If you're playing in the Arenas and you win you're going to get points that will progress your rank, give you titles, vanity rewards, achievements, things that are not focused on power but showing how dedicated you are to PvP. As you continue to play through, even if you lose, you will also get points and progression.