What was the original Diablo 3 story?

[divinedeathstalker]

I know there are screen shots of what Diablo 3 previously looked like way before the scrapped it and made it what it was today, with that being said, I always wondered what was blizzards original story to diablo 3? Has it changed much to what it currently is with the black soul stone, malathael, etc? Anyone know?

Did it include cain dieing to a butter fly lady? Was he meant to die by diablo? etc. etc.

 

[fmulder]

We might have to wait for David Craddock to wirte a book about it, I believe he's working on one for D2 at the moment.

 

[Lanthanide]

Flux might have some snippets.

But I think the point is the original D3 was effectively only a working concept demo of the new engine, which was supposed to be MMO-like if not a full MMO. They were probably just test environments at that stage. So I don't know if there was much of a story written; probably there'd be a concept "like after the worldstone was destroyed, x and y happened" but I wouldn't expect anything detailed, like the particular bosses or character story arcs like you're interested in.

 

[Cipherthros]

From the snippets & screenshots that have been released over the years, it does look like D3 (Blizzard North version) was set in Heaven just like the final released version. There's some good info on the wiki page for this site actually. http://www.diablowiki.net/Diablo_III:_Blizzard_North_version

Also, I read a while back (from the man Flux himself) that interestingly one of the original classes being made for that version was a Crusader. Wonder if there are any other knowns he can shed light on?

 

[Disciple of Erebos]

According to a really old article (pre-Paragon levels) about an interview with some of the Blizzard North guys, one of them said that when they made D2, they made the game first and had another team put a story to it at the end. Assuming this is true, Blizzard North probably would have created their D3 the same way, so other than the game being set in Heaven, there was probably no real story other than a few very broad ideas.

That said, I would imagine that the current D3's story probably wouldn't have been too much like Blizzard North's D3. According to the article, it had to do with the battle between Heaven and Hell, so the overarching story might have been similar, especially with Diablo taking Heaven at the end and you having to stop him. However, the various plot points probably would not have matched up.