Diablo 3 community manager Bashiok made a few more posts in the forums today, and all the ones with substantial game info are quoted below. If you click any of the links from the WoW D3 forum, notice his avatar; it’s an animated Fallen Shaman from D3; the first confirmation that that monster type will return in the game. “Raaak-anishu?”
On all the D3 characters being self-sufficient and powerful in their own right, or just co-op helpers?
Diablo III having a strong emphasis on cooperative play is really building upon one of the best parts of Diablo II, and that’s charging through dungeons with other people. Our focus is on removing the frustrations that existed with grouping, and adding new features that encourage everyone to stick together and fight as a party.
On item drops in parties.
Obviously while in a group you’re killing faster, and this could translate to an exponentially increasing number of drops with each additional player in your party. However, it’s balanced in such a way that the drop % is pulled back a bit with each additional player (I’m simplifying it, but that’s what it boils down to). This keeps it from being almost detrimental to not play with a full party, while still giving a nice increase to the amount of drops if you do.
From this system it seems quite a few people got the impression that you’ll never see items drop that you can’t use. For instance, a Barbarian will never see a dagger that only a Witch Doctor can use. This isn’t true. There is no effect, or at least no currently intended effect, to restrict which items which classes can or can’t see for their respective drops. It’s still intended that you could see an item that your class can’t use. It’s easy enough to drop the item, ask if anyone can use it, or just sell it off of course.
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Yeah, so right now in a multiplayer game I’ll see my items drop, if I don’t want it or can’t use it I’ll need to pick it up and then drop it at which time everyone can see it. Then I can of course ask in chat if anyone wants it. It’s fairly straight forward, and by no means final, obviously.
To clarify “can’t use” we don’t plan nor have any armor items at the moment that are class specific – although the bonuses and stats may be better suited to a certain class – anyone can pick up any chest/shoulder/leg/etc item and wear it. However, there are some weapons/off-hand items that are class specific.
On making trading more accessible:
What about item binding?
Will there be absolutely no items that will be bound to a character? It isn’t possible to say with any certainty at this point, there might be.
Why only five classes?
When you up the number of classes more and more you’re eventually going to begin down the route of homogenization, they start to bleed into each other’s core abilities and styles which really just detracts from each individual class’ recognizability and distinction within the game.
In addition, by limiting the number – and I say limiting not because it’s a low number, it’s the number of classes in Diablo II and a good one at that, but because we’re not going crazy with it – we can focus on making each class really impressive, both visually and through the way they each feel and play.
On the play style encouraged by health globes:
I’ll set the scene. You’re a barbarian, you’re in the wilderness and after fighting wave after wave of ghouls, skeletons, demons, what have you, you’re low on health. You’re out of potions, and after using a strategic leap out of the fray you turn around and seismic slam the skeletons charging you. Two of them drop health globes, but the globes dropped behind the skeletons that are still advancing. If they reach you, you’re not going to survive. Are you able to leap safely to snag the globes before they can tear into you? Can you throw out another slam and try to remove the remaining enemies? How can you survive? You have a fraction of a second to decide.
The health globes help to create situations just like this, where you’re not just sitting there spamming potions, you’re using your abilities and strategy to stay alive. Possibly most importantly, you’re encouraged to keep fighting, and not just run away.
With random spawns, random drops, and of course the randomness of combat, the health globes add to creating situations that are just more… interesting, and in my opinion, fun.
On the side of potions, they still exist, but they’re likely to be on a cooldown of some type. They’ll also likely restore health based on a percentage that’s relative to your character. They may heal an instant amount, they may be the old over time type system. They’re probably going to be filling an emergency-heal role more than anything though.
And to answer a question we’ve heard from a few people, no, Bashiok won’t be posting in this, or any, non-Blizzard forum. It’s now Blizzard’s company policy that the Community Managers may only post in the various official Battle.net and WoW forums.