Bashiok answered a few queries today. To a poster who complained about the obscuring visual fireworks created by various Diablo 2 skills, Bashiok explained the D3 Team’s design philosophy.
You need to be able to read the scene, tell monster and player apart, and not have it turn into a mess of spell effects. While we’re really aiming for over-the-top skills and effects, it’s going to be a constant goal (and likely struggle) to keep those in line so that in a multiplayer game it’s going to retain its readability.
It’s fine for things to get chaotic, it will happen and we want there to be mass-mayhem and slaughter, but we’re trying to keep the game playable even during the chaos. It’s a balance.
Other fans are hungry for more content, and are already wondering if we’ll see the goods at Blizzcon. Will we get a gameplay movie? Bashiok deals with one such fellow with Roper-ian grace, acknowledging, inspiring, and redirecting him so smoothly he never even feels the PR knife slide in.
In the more immediate future a few of us are heading out to Leipzig for GC next week. We’ll be joining our friends from the Blizzard Europe office to meet and greet the fans. If you happen to be passing through Germany and also happen to have a ticket to the convention, be sure to stop by and say hello.
Other forum goes are not so easily put off, and a follow up question is quickly posed, asking what sort of information we’ll see released to coincide with that major German gaming event. Not a whole lot, apparently:
Stop by and say hi though. I think I may be the only Blizzard person there with a goatee, so I should be easy to spot. I’m scheduled to be there every day to chat up fans about the game.