Blizzard Cares… about corpses.

D3 CM Bashiok made a couple of forum comments today, delivering encouraging words and even a little bit of D3 info. In a thread about the WWI gameplay movie, he offered several short comments that are more easily summarized than quoted. (The links go to the appropriate pages in the Diablowiki) The half zombies in the movie are Crawling Torsos, the critters (bunnies) were immortal in the demo build but will not be in the final game, the seemingly inescapable frozen-by-a-goatman-shaman sequence was a scripted event that “wasn’t necessarily indicative of something that would show up in the actual game,” and the Siegebreaker boss has a knockback effect on its charge attack.

Bashiok’s other post was a long reply was in a thread full of just the sort of typical b.net embittered fanboy hatred that has made our forums such a long running success. Does Blizzard Even Care?

Aw, of course we care! A large part of my job is specifically to ensure that the valid concerns, comments, and critiques are brought to the appropriate people’s attention. That doesn’t mean that every idea or suggestion is something we agree with, or are going to base changes on though. There’s a point where, as a game designer, you have to stick to your guns and know that your choices and direction are what’s best for the game and ultimately those that will be playing it. There’s a point where you have to be confident that you’re making the right decisions. So at the end of the day you’re staying true to your vision and design, and doing what’s best for the game.

A good example of us paying attention though was the concern and thread about corpses not sticking around long enough. I read that thread, brought it up, and some discussion was happening on it. Later our lead tech artist Julian was reading through the replies, and got some ideas of how we may want to keep corpses on screen a little longer. Now we’re playing around with some changes that shouldn’t have a huge performance hit, while still keeping the corpses on screen for variable amounts of time. Hopefully it works out.

Would any experimentation for corpse decay have happened had it not been brought up on the forums? I don’t know, maybe, but we’re not just dismissing good, valid, and well reasoned concerns.

As I said not every suggestion, comment, or idea is going to be considered, but we’re definitely watching and reading.

Tagged As: | Categories: Uncategorized

Comments