Posts with tag barbarian

Blizzcon 2013: Diablo III Reaper of Souls class and systems panel

by Daniel Whitcomb Nov 11th 2013 at 5:00PM

On the second day of BlizzCon 2013, the Diablo 3 team hosted a gameplay systems panel in which they covered some of the new systems coming to the Reaper of Souls expansion, including not only the Crusader class, but information on changes for the existing classes and some of the new itemization tweaks we can expect to see in Loot 2.0.

Crusading for a new class

The first section of the panel introduced the new class, the Crusader. Designing a new class is one of the most complex tasks in an RPG, but it starts with a simple concept. In this case, the team wanted a righteous paladin type, which would work as a good answer to Malthael, the angel of death and main villain of Reaper of Souls. The idea came together of having a dark paladin, full of righteous wrath, a "knight in battle-scarred armor" to stand for humanity in its darkest hour. This lead to concept art. They knew they wanted the Crusader to be bulky and blocky, but it took many weeks of reiterations before they settled on the look of today, with the shield, the flail, and the tabard.

Filed under: BlizzCon, Diablo 3

Diablo 3 Transmog Outfits for WoW: Deckard Cain, Leah, Witch Doctor, Barbarian

by Dawn Moore May 17th 2012 at 10:00AM

In honor of the release of Diablo III earlier this week, I've decided to dedicate my next two transmogrification articles to recreating the cast of the game. We'll start with the barbarian first -- but before we dive in, I have to tell you a quick story.

I used to know a mage who wore an enchanted Chef's Hat during raids. The first day he wore it to raid, someone asked him to take it off, but he wouldn't; it was his new favorite hat and he intended to wear it. This annoyed several people in the raid, who repeatedly told him to take the hat off, so the mage told them this: "When someone does more damage than me, I will put my other helm back on."

That day never came, so the hat stayed until he got bored of it.

I mention this story because you'd think with all the plate bikinis and mail hot pants in WoW, the task of assembling a barbarian's costume for a warrior or paladin would be simple. Alas, loincloths don't seem to be that popular with plate wearers, so you'll either have to put on some pants or convince your raid leader that you don't need pants to do your job.

Filed under: Transmogrification, Diablo 3

Learn the basics of Diablo 3 gameplay

by Alex Ziebart May 14th 2012 at 8:00PM

Since Diablo II was released 12 years ago, it's safe to say that Diablo III will be the first Diablo title many people will have ever played. When we first mentioned that we would be providing some coverage of Blizzard's point-and-click dungeoneering action title, one of the first requests we received was a guide to Diablo basics. How do you play the game? What does it have in common with WoW?

We have you covered.

The core of Diablo gameplay is the mouse click. You do everything from combat to looting to movement with your mouse, and your interactions with your keyboard are extremely minimal overall. On Twitter recently, I noticed many people mentioning they were buying a new mouse specifically to use with Diablo III -- and that's not a bad idea. No, we're not talking a brand new $80 Razer Naga; we're talking some $10 to $15 thing you can pick up off of a department store shelf. You want a mouse that you're not going to mourn when your buttons inevitably give out from the mountain of abuse you're about to unleash upon them. Grab something cheap and disposable so that when it dies, you will consider it a victory -- just another technological corpse for the bone pile.

Filed under: Diablo 3

BlizzCon 2008: The Art Gallery

by Mike Schramm Oct 11th 2008 at 6:30PM

It's not the flashiest place at BlizzCon -- until you step inside. While the gameplay demo areas and the developer panels have claimed most of the attention here at the convention, there are a few hidden treasures inside the booths, one of which is the Blizzard art gallery. The art inside spans across all of Blizzard's games, and though their games are beautiful, the art used in designing them is even moreso.

Check out the gallery below to see what's in BlizzCon's art gallery -- from the Barbarian brutes of Diablo to the frozen tundra of Northrend and the starscapes of Starcraft, here is Blizzard's creativity and design mastery put into form on the wall. Whether it's concept art, quick sketches or full paintings, it's really amazing stuff.

Gallery: BlizzCon 2008 Art Gallery

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Blizzard, Screenshots, Lore, NPCs, Galleries, BlizzCon, Wrath of the Lich King

What we're expecting from BlizzCon

by Daniel Whitcomb Aug 11th 2008 at 8:00PM

As we announced earlier, BlizzCon tickets are on sale. Sort of. Kind of. If you can fight past the store servers. I know I've been getting nothing but the fail murloc pretty much all day. Still, I and the rest of WoW Insider's crack live team will be there come hell or high water, and we'll bring you the news you need to know. In the meantime, we're stuck here refreshing the Blizzard Store. To pass the time, we did a bit of speculation about what we might see in Anaheim on October 10th and 11th. Here's what we decided:

What we're sure to see

The Wrath of the Lich King Cinematic: Though we still have no solid announcement, Blizzard's already stated that they want to get Wrath out before 2008 is up. Considering that, they must have the opening cinematic pretty close to done. I would be surprised if we don't see it open the opening ceremony, to be completely honest. I'm expecting Arthas and/or a "rebel" Human Death Knight to feature prominently, as well as our first cinematic Gnome shot.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, Fan stuff, WoW Social Conventions, Blizzard, Expansions, BlizzCon, Wrath of the Lich King

Is World of Warcraft really World of Diablo?

by Daniel Whitcomb Jul 12th 2008 at 8:00PM

So how do you design Diablo 3 anyway? Bargain Bin Reviews has an idea -- just retrofit World of Warcraft. Shift talent points to spells, decrease enemy health and damage and increase the number of enemies by a factor of 10 or so, do away with healing spells and tanking, and you're essentially done. It's a bit silly and a bit tongue in cheek, yes, but it also brings up a good point. In the end, WoW is probably influenced by Diablo 2 as much as it is by Warcraft 3, if not more.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard

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