Diablo III is a dark fantasy/horror-themed action role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment, the third installment in the Diablo franchise. The game, which features elements of the hack and slash and dungeon crawl genres, was released in North America, Latin America and Europe on May 15, 2012, and is scheduled to be released in Russia on June 7, 2012. Before its release, the game broke several presale records and became the most pre-ordered PC game of all time on Amazon.com. Post release it set the new all-time record for fastest-selling PC game by selling over 3.5 million copies in the first 24 hours of its release.
Gameplay is substantially similar to that of previous titles in the Diablo franchise. The game is classified as an action role-playing game that is played primarily using the mouse to direct the character with supplementary commands provided through the keyboard.
Diablo III's inventory and HUD retain a feel similar to that found in earlier games in the series, including a viewpoint reminiscent of the isometric view of Diablo III's predecessors. The inventory has sixty slots for items. Armor and weaponry each occupy two slots and all other items each occupy one slot. It can also be expanded to include details about the character's attributes.
The proprietary engine incorporates Blizzard's custom in-house physics, a change from the original usage of Havok's physics engine, and features destructible environments with an in-game damage effect. The developers were aiming to make the game run on a wide range of systems, and have said that DirectX 10 will not be required. Diablo III uses a custom 3D game engine in order to present an overhead view to the player, in a somewhat similar way to the isometric view used in previous games in the series. Enemies utilize the 3D environment as well, in ways such as crawling up the side of a wall from the depths into the combat area.
Diablo III's skills window depicting the abilities of the wizard class.
As in Diablo II, multiplayer games are possible using Blizzard's Battle.net service, with many of the new features developed for StarCraft II also available in Diablo III. Players will be able to drop in and out of sessions of co-operative play with others.their DRM policy, including single-player games.
An enhanced quest system, a random level generator, and a random encounter generator are used in order to ensure the game provides different experiences when replayed. Overall, the game will include both static and randomly generated levels. Additionally, there are class-specific quests to go along with the main storyline quests. Blizzard originally planned to have in-game cutscenes, but they felt these would divert from the gameplay and ultimately decided against them.
Unlike previous iterations, gold can be picked up merely by touching it, rather than having to manually pick it up. One of the new features intended to speed gameplay is that health orbs drop from enemies, replacing the need to have a potion bar, which itself is replaced by a skill bar that allows a player to assign quick bar buttons to skills and spells; previously, players could only assign two skills (one for each mouse button) and had to swap skills with the keyboard or mousewheel. Players can still assign specific attacks to mouse buttons.
Skill runes, another new feature, are skill modifiers that are unlocked as the player levels up. Unlike the socketable runes in Diablo II, skill runes are not items but options for enhancing skills, often completely changing the gameplay of each skill. For example, one skill rune for the Wizard's meteor ability reduces its arcane power cost, while another turns the meteor to ice, causing cold damage rather than fire.
Diablo III gives players the choice to make hardcore characters, similar to Diablo II. Players are required to first level up a regular character to level 10 before they have the option to create new Hardcore characters. Hardcore characters cannot be resurrected; instead they become permanently unplayable if they are killed. They also do not have access to the real-world money auction house. Hardcore mode is intended for experienced players who enjoy the additional thrill of having only a single virtual life. Hardcore characters are separately ranked, their names are highlighted with a different color (red) and they can only form teams with other hardcore characters. After dying, the ghost of a hardcore character can still chat, the name still shows up in rankings, but the character cannot return to the game.
Release
Diablo III was released on May 15, 2012. Players had the options to either buy one of two retail boxed versions, a standard edition and collector's edition, or could also pre-order directly from Battle.net and download the installer in advance. On May 14, 2012 players who bought the downloadable version from Battle.net could install the rest of the game including patches. On May 15, 2012 the retail version could be bought from stores doing midnight launches such as GameStop. Also the Diablo III Battle.net servers went live at this time and people who downloaded the game could begin playing. Initially the launches were hindered by heavy server load with many users getting various errors, including the error 37 which reads; "The servers are busy at this time. Please try again later (error 37)". These issues made the game unplayable for those affected while some others experienced in-game bugs.
The release was also the source of a minor controversy in Australia when retailer Game went into voluntary administration the day before the release, and so was unable to honor pre-orders or offer refunds.[70] In response to this, Blizzard Entertainment offered affected customers credit in purchasing the digital version of the game.
Activision Blizzard reported that Diablo III had broken the one-day PC sales records, accumulating over 3.5 million sales in the first 24 hours after release and over 6.3 million sales in it's first week, not including the 1.2 million people who obtained Diablo III through the World of Warcraft annual pass. The game amassed 4.7 million players worldwide on its first day, this figure includes those who obtained the game via the World of Warcraft annual pass.
Early critical impressions have been positive. GamesRadar was positive about the game's opening act and its nods to past Diablo games claiming "we liked what we saw.
IGN was positive about the new skill system stating "Instead of gameplay like Diablo II, where I often regretted how I allotted my ability points, Diablo III encourages experimentation and finding out exactly what works for your play-style. It's a vastly superior way to handle character abilities", and praised the overall gameplay, stating "the new systems really do make it a lot easier to enjoy Diablo III".
IGN further praised the game's new gameplay design, in particular the rune and loot systems, the randomly generated levels and the game's enjoyable unpredictability. It stated the game's feel is quite intuitive and also praised the game's sound and voicing.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun gave mixed commentary during the game's beta period, praising the actual game itself by stating that it is much more direct than its predecessors and intuitive in its interface. However, it said the playing experience is spoiled due to lag in single-player mode caused by a lack of an offline single-player mode. Following the game's release, it reaffirmed its displeasure at the always-online DRM and offered a mixed opinion that the game was enjoyable but added "nothing new" to its genre.
Some users have voiced criticism about the game's strong digital rights management which requires what is known as persistent online authentication, resulting in the lack of an offline single-player mode. Players also took out their anger on developer Blizzard. Their actions have been described by various commentators as either another instance of gamers showing a sense of entitlement, or a legitimate display of discontentment with game features.
Erica Kain, a Forbes contributing writer, stated that the requirement to remain online is not necessary for single-player mode and that Blizzard is abusing its position as a "juggernaut" and is setting a worrying precedent for the gaming industry. Diablo III senior producer Alex Mayberry was quoted as stating during development questions and concerns about DRM: "Obviously StarCraft 2 did it, World of Warcraft authenticates also. It's kind of the way things are, these days. The world of gaming is not the same as it was when Diablo 2 came out.
Gaming Blend countered negative journalism aimed at the game's fanbase. It claims that the industry at large is far too defensive of production companies' actions to the point of accepting backward steps in game availability. It dismisses the existence of "entitlement" saying that while a large portion of 0/10 reviews do not reflect the quality of the game, they nonetheless reflect the dissatisfaction with the product.
While Gaming Blend disliked the always-online DRM, it did give the game a positive review. It stated the game includes interesting opportunities for experimentation has great appeal for replaying over and over. The review concluded the game is "smooth and entertaining.
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