Diablo III was announced at last year's Blizzard Invitational in Paris, with further details revealed at BlizzCon 2008. This year, Blizzard has already let loose details of a new character class, the Monk, during the BlizzCon 2009 Opening Ceremony.

The Diablo III panel at BlizzCon this year, subtitled "Heroes and Monsters", was unfortunately marred by technical difficulties as a number of videos failed to play. Nevertheless, the team of Boyarsky, Cheng, Love and Wilson managed to convey a lot of information about the progress of the title.

The initial part of the panel dedicated a solid period of time to the development of the newly-announced Monk character class. The Monk has been designed to be fragile, yet able to deal high levels of damage through stacked combo attacks based on martial arts. From what we've seen, this new class appears to be a blend of the original Monk from Diablo Hellfire, and the Assassin from Diablo II.

The Monk possesses a great deal of runic knowledge, and can unleash attacks such as the "Thousand Fists" (an attack that targets multiple enemies) and the "Crippling Wave". He can also utilize a "Seven Sided Strike", which (much like chain lightning) can jump from creature to creature to unleash a wave of damage. As far as Diablo Lore is concerned, the Monk is designed to be a cross between an Eastern European Orthodox priest and an Asian martial arts master.

 

Blizzard hasn't forgotten about the other characters previously unveiled too - the Witch Doctor's spider totem attack, debuted at BlizzCon '08, has been renamed "Carrion Spiders" and now has larger, more aggressive spiders that emerge from the corpse of a resurrected zombie. The Barbarian's whirlwind has also been changed, it's now faster, more detailed and better suited to the direction the art team and testers want for the game. The Barbarian's Rage ability has also been changed to allow more fluid play.

The monsters of Sanctuary have received considerable modifications too, and the panel were quick to stress that the original Diablo goal of keeping them simple has been retained. For example, the new "Sandwasps" play a support role, and feature swarming attacks that by themselves aren't particularly effective, however in groups form a "slow moving wall of death", in the words of Blizzard's Julian Love.

Fallen Demons return too, however now play more of a freelance role. Back again is the shaman/imp system, which now features Fallen Overseers which issue battle cries to minions in order to rally their attack. Perhaps the best new creature however is the Fallen Lunatic, which as a kind of "living bomb" will run at you and stab himself in the stomach until he explodes.

Most of the brief Q&A session at the conclusion of the panel consisted of the team admitting that they couldn't speak about most elements of the game, however we did learn that neither boss battles or the magic find system was well defined in the game. The overall impression was one of witnessing a game still very much under construction, which is bad news for fans anticipating a 2010 release. Our money is still on 2011.

Read on for all the details from the panel as it happened:

 

[8:58] Panel is due to start any minute now...

[9:00] Presenters Boyarsky, Cheng, Love and Wilson have ascended to the stage.

[9:03] They are talking about the choice of the Monk. Inspired by pen and paper role playing games, fragile, fast, melee is good gameplay, good contrast from the Barbarian. The D3 team loves fighting games.

[9:04] Monk has lots of combo moves, does holy magic, is focused on speed over strength. Has complementary skills. Is a bit more challenging at the beginning to play because of its fragility. (Sounds very much the same as the Monk from Diablo: Hellfire.)

[9:06] It is based on Asian monks rather than orthodox eastern European monks. A holy warrior - from the foothills. To prove dedication they are tatooed on their back with their 1,001 gods, part of a highly structured, theocratic society.

[9:10] Combo systems add depth to melee moves. You will be able to combine combo moves too, this evolved from Diablo 2's Assassin and WoW's Rogue. Spells include thousand fists and crippling wave.

[9:12] Players can spam one skill or do Way of Hundred Fists, then Crippling Wave, then Exploding Palm as a three-stage combo.

[9:15] Martial arts action, holy colour palette, has a runic knowledge. Seven-Sided Strike now shown - bit like Chain Lightning. Developed by taking animators, adding holy palette, cranking up the impacts, and adding 2D fighter style.

[9:17] Other heroes upgraded too - Witch Doctor's Spider Totem changed; they weren't crazy about the totem thematic. Renamed it Carrion Spiders. The spiders are bigger, and it now has a zombie thematic - spiders are emitted from a zombie corpse that is raised from the floor.

[9:18] Wizard's Stone Skin also changed, look was hard to read. New look is crystalline, looks like she's covered in crystals. Easy to read. Still unnamed.

[9:19] Barbarian's Whirlwind changed too. Dune Dervish enemy also had Whirlwind, which looked better, so they had to go back and redo it. New effect is thicker with more dust - shows Barb whirlwinding a bunch of cows, blood everywhere...

[9:24] There will be a new 'resource' system - like mana. They are trying to use unique systems for each class. Barbarian has fury. Endless Fury - hitting targets generates fury. It's a fast paced system, skills have to be used carefully on monsters.

 

[9:26] Runes are very important to Diablo III. Key element to customisation skills. If any element of design is changed, all the runes have to be scrapped and remade, that's why they don't appear in demos.

[9:28] Monsters work best when simple. Most only live for 3-5 seconds. Too much detail makes them look confused and weird. Complexity and depth comes from combining different monster types. Identifying them is key. Should always keep introducing new monsters.

[9:31] Shape, profile and colour make a big difference to ease of identification. Roughly 100 monsters in the game. Archetypes: Swarmers are weak and typically melee, Ranged are projectile based and fast, Lieutenants resurrect and buff, Elites are tough or have stronger attacks or both, AOE has point blank, line, radial and cone attacks, Weakers debuff heros, slow them.

[9:38] New monster type revealed - Sandwasp. Plays a support role, is a swarming creature, not very tough on its own, but lots of them together is a slow moving wall of death.

[9:41] Fallen Demons - classic Diablo demon system. Now are freelance demons. Return of the Shaman/Imp system, now has Fallen Overseers, has a battle cry and won't run away. Fallen Lunatic introduced too, living bomb/suicide bomber - runs at you and stabs himself in the stomach until he explodes.

[9:44] Dune Thresher - work in progress. Inspired by the movie Tremors, Blizz wanted to make the sand feel dangerous. An example of the difficulty of complex monsters in Diablo III. Dune Thresher only submerges on sand, and can only be attacked above ground.

[9:45] Panel has ended.