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After Blizzard’s last year’s exciting announcement of StarCraft 2, they continue the hype by announcing their next big project, Diablo 3, during their showcase event at Paris last week. Before the event, some teasers at their official site has already caused lots of wild speculation as to what project Blizzard will announce. Some said it will be Diablo 3, while others speculate of a totally new franchise. End up Diablo 3 is announced, but I hope they will do something new in the future, maybe a FPS game for example, or restart StarCraft: Ghost!!

During the event, 2 trailers were announced, a teaser trailer and a gameplay trailer. The teaser trailer shows some new cities, which you should be visiting in the game. A comet is also shown to be crashing on earth, unleashing demons from hell again. During the end of Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction, the World Stone was destroyed to stop the demons. We do not know what effect the destruction of World Stone could have, so I guess this event should probably set the plot for Diablo 3. The trailer really gets you all excited for Diablo 3. Dammit, I just can’t wait for the game!!!

The gameplay trailer is the real center of attention. It has 20 mins of real gameplay footage. The game is total awesome!! First of all, your character is richly detailed. Although customization of your character is only limited to gender selection, but when wearing some really big and cool armor, your character looks superb!!

The video starts with a Barbarian bashing his way through the dungeon. Barbarian is still the same old Barbarian, with tons of melee skills at his disposal, using pure brute strength to slay his opponents. Something interesting happens in the demo when our melee specialist bash against a wall to take it down on a group of zombies. I was like “OMGWTF” when I saw this. This shows some really interactive environments although not all of them are fully destructible. Cleverly use your environment to your advantage is an important tips here! Plus, it looks really cool when you pull off a move like that, killing some shits by smashing a wall against them. WOOT!!

The second character class shown in the demo is Witch Doctor. WD can have control over disease, can summon pets, and can even control the minds of his or her enemies. Sounds imbalance!! WD can cast locust swarm, a spell that summons a nasty horde of flying locusts that can overwhelm an opponent and automatically attack additional enemies in the area. In the demo, WD summoned some pets called “Mongrel”, pets that can attack enemies and be buffed with other Witch Doctor spells, such as locust swarm, giving the pet an attack bonus. WD also casts a horrify spell, which causes enemies to temporarily flee in terror, kinda like Warlock’s Fear spell in WoW. By far, WD’s coolest ability seen is the wall of zombie, which is truly terrifying, awesome, cool, ermmm I run out of superlatives here. If you’ve seen a wall of fire or ice in a game before, you probably have a pretty good idea of what this skill involves. Since WD kinda resembles Necromancer from Diablo 2, there has been speculation that Necromancer will be removed in Diablo 3 to make way for WD. However, Blizzard developers quickly point out that the Witch Doctor is very much its own class and that its presence in the game wouldn’t necessarily require the removal of the Necromancer in Diablo III.

If you can remember well, Diablo 2 interface system has all the number keys used up for potions. In Diablo 3, a new interface system will take place and skills will be given higher priority than potions. Blizzard developers point out that previous Diablos rely too much on potions, as people just buy tons and tons of potions and use them during combat. Potions will still play a part in Diablo 3, but to a more minor role, as they will be replaced by other features. As far as I know, there are these health globes, which drop off defeated enemies and will serve to boost the health of your character, as well as those around you if you’re playing co-operatively. The previous potion belt will be replaced with a skill tab, much like WoW I guess, which skills can easily be swapped with just a roll of your mouse.

As usual, Blizzard’s release date is “when it’s ready”. This pretty much covers it all. To summarize this all, I just can’t wait for the game!!

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By Travis

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