The second BlizzCon Diablo III panel kicked off with Jay explaining how Diablo and Diablo II had drawn-out narratives that broke the gameplay immersion. The focus on Diablo III is to "play, don't tell". Jay demonstrated this with an in-game video showing a character being escorted through a level whilst an NPC narrated the story process.

In addition, Lorebooks have been introduced. These fall as treasure, and narrate the story in the background while you continue to play through the level. The example shown had King Leoric talking about his original encounter with Diablo, and the madness that ensued.

After this, other panellists discussed various aspects art and design aspects, starting with Bastion's Keep, a siege level in Diablo III. Blizzard noted that sieges are perfect - they're easy to design, they have awesome action and everyone knows the deal.

 

Bastion's Keep will consist of an invading army that must be repelled, as well as a sub-plot whereby sappers invade the dungeon below the keep, and must be repelled. Moving through the keep from an art perspective, we learn that the exterior consists of a triangular theme, with ballistas, towers and dark, rough ironwork.

Blizzard explained that the idea is to take the initial impression of the scene, then cut out unnecessary stuff. Once they've settled on the concept art, they send it to the Modelling Team for inclusion in the game.

For the interior of Bastion's Keep, they wanted to make it a bit more "lived in" - the battle is on the outside, so the inside is a bit less aggressive. So less iron, more wood, less threatening. Mills and forges are inside too, as well as soldiers preparing for battle. The mood has changed from a hostile battlefield to a calm interior.

When the Modelling Team receive concept art, they have a meeting, discuss how to break it up into walls, pillars and other internal features, then start work rendering it. They have a "greybox" playable version of the level which consists of simple walls with no textures in order to check gameplay. After the "feel and flow" is sorted, they drop in the materials - stone and wood textures.

 

After this, the Tech Art team help them out with the lighting, shadows and effects - breakables, things to blow up.

Jason Bender, Game Designer, expanded on the loot locations. When the loot is populated, the fact that you divide your time between fighting and loot finding is considered heavily. There are common barrels, rare chests, and thousands of potential places for them.

Mini-dungeons are utilised for a change of pace, and to introduce new monsters. They're also good for bite-sized goals. They don't take long to complete and provide a rewarding experience. They're also good opportunity to introduce storylines.

World events provide unique enemies and hazards - you could be walking along and "500 zombies will pop out of the ground". Events are yet another opportunity to introduce story elements.

 

Jill, Technical Artist, explained that they've put a lot of effort into interactive objects, which makes the world feel more real. Objects can tell a story too, the examples given include; "why was this poor guy left on a torture rack" and "why is this barrel full of blood"?

On the subject of Monster AI, Blizzard are aware that monsters are often on the screen briefly in Diablo before they're killed. The example provided showed an early monster in the game, the Grave Digger. In an idle state, he's wandering around. Then he goes into a suspicious state if you get close, then an aggressive state if you get really close. In reality however, he's typically dead within half a second as soon as you see him. The lesson is that that non-combat behaviours aren't really seen, and monsters die very quickly.

This really means that Blizzard have to choose when to show the monsters character effects. Spawn sequences, death sequences, and during the combat are their only opportunities to do this.

 

On to art direction, concept art was provided for the Barbarian and Witch Doctor armour sets, with the caveat that it's important to keep the flavour of the class. Barbarian shoulder pads define the silhouette strongly.

The Witch Doctor is a good opportunity to push the envelope. The concept team suggested that the armour should moves, and an animation showed moving tentacles protruding from the shoulder pads.

You can customize armour with dyes. You can craft or buy dyes, or get them with drops. Some dyes are rarer than others, although how the rarity will be determined isn't known yet.

The weapon progression has to feel interesting and varied. The weapons will be themed too, maybe they will look a bit more evil, or a bit more nice, and this will carry over to armour too.

 

Artisans are 'vendors 2.0'. They are proper characters, they will have opinions, and they try to "permeate the game with story".

The Jeweller sockets and unsockets weapons without losing either the gem or the item. In addition, only the first five levels of gems will drop, the rest must be crafted by the jeweller.

The UI is designed to be simple, with less use of multiple pages. You also won't have to learn a new UI for each artisan.

Artisans level up, and so does their environment - the caravan changes, becomes larger with more detail, and items scattered around it. Themes get more prominent, metal gets stronger, wood gets thicker.

During the Q&A session, we also learned that there will be no customisation of the UI in D3, due to a desire to prevent the game becoming too complex.

In addition, you will only be able to see your own vendor, dyes do not carry over to new items you equip, and there is no new information about the Collectors Edition at this time.