| Chattet gick till så att alla Webmasters, som var där, fick ställa förslag till frågor. Medan ScottC7 valde ut de bästa och Bill Roper svarade i sintur på dem. |
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Q: How about an update on the projects in general?
A: Starcraft Brood War is getting reaaly fun to play. All of the units and special effects are in, and the tile sets are really coming together. We are starting the play balance process and are getting the campaigns together at this point. The cinematic team has done an incredible job as well, and it is shaping up to be really much more than just a simple expansion. The team's concept is to make it :even better than Starcraft" and they are doing it. Diablo II - Also coming along at a fantastic pace. We will be updating the website in the next few days with all of the NPCs from ACT one. I just played the latest build last week and it is getting exceptionally fun, even in this relatively early stage of its development.
Q: When can we expect to see the next characters in the screenshots?
A: We should have the Sorceress and Paladin artwork up on the website in the next few weeks and the Paladin will be in the game by ECTS (early September). Again we will be putting up in game artwork of all the ACT 1 NPCs on teh website in the next few days.
Q: How will the recent employee departures affect Diablo 2?
A: Only one member of the Diablo II team has left and they do not feel that their product or timeline will be dramatically affected.
Q: How will playing one character differ from playing a different character?
A: The character classes will be drastically differnet in abilities, skills, spells and strengths. The Barbairan has no spells, but tons fo combat techniques, while the Amazon focuses her abilities and magical prowess on ranged attacks. Each character will play extremely differently as the vast majority of spells will be different, No longer will all spell casters have firebolt, for instance.
Q: What else will add to replayability?
A: Things like the addition of sets of tiems which will encourage gathering of helm of Agranon, the Shield of Agranon adn the Breastplate of Agranon, because when you have all three they give you special effects/spells/abilties. Also class specific items (A book of Undead Command useable only by the Necromancer for instance) that will encourage you to keep looking for that killer unique item. Also, there will be much more reason to mix character classes in parties as each will have specific abilities that will be beneficial to their co-adventurers.
Q: What support will there be for guilds in multiplayer?
A: One fo the things we will be doing is having Guild Halls. These will be special multiplayer games that only Guild Members can initiate where they can meet, trade items and even store itmes in a treasure horde. We will be looking for more things to do, but we haven't nailed them all down yet.
Q: Will there be a beta test for DII? If so, on what scale?
A: We really haven't planned that far out in advance yet, but obviously the beta test for Diablo and Starcraft was a fantastic opportunity to get direct input from you. We recognize the plusses of doing a beta test and will give it a lot of consideration. As for the scope of it, we would try to make it at least as broad based as our previous betas.
Q: How will the trading of items between characters work?
A: We will have a secure trading system. I think looking at Ultima Online will give you a good idea of what we are thinking of. Basically, we want to avoid the "Diablo Shuffle" this time around:)
Q: Will players lose items when they are PK's? Will they lose ears like in Diablo?
A: The game is still quite a ways out, and details like this are not nailed down. Obviously, you bloodthirsty types enjoyed this, and we will remember that as the design goes on:)
Q: Can guilds establish their own channels with their own rules?
A: We have not even talked about that yet, but we will be sure that the Diablo II and Battle.net teams get the request.
Q: Are there any plans for an expansion set? How about Starcraft?
A: We have no plans for any further expansions to Diablo. As far as Diablo II goes, we would really need to get the game out first. With Starcraft, we are really concentrating on Brood War before we even look at doing anything else.
Q: Can we expect Diablo 3?
A: Diablo 3? Geez - let us #2 out first:)...
Q: Will D2 be on Battle.net? Will there be separate D2 servers?
A: Yes, Diablo II will be supported on Battle.net. As far as our server scheme, we will definitely be adding servers between now and when D2 ships -- in other words we want to ensure that everyone can get on at all times. Battle.net is an ever growing and changing beast that we intend support and upgrade continuously.
Q: Besides the staffs, will there be special swords or other weapons which can cast spells?
A: Yes.
Q: Will there be VoxWare support in D2?
A: The VoxWare technology is very cool, and we like to look at the and license cool technology. We really haven't decided when and if we will use it, but we are taking a hard look at what it gives us in terms of game play.
Q: Will you be announcing any products at ECTS?
A: No, but we will be showing the latest build of Diablo II, which should have the Paladion as a playable character class.
Q: Will you create a Diablo costume similar to the infamous Orc costume.
A:There already is a lifesize Diablko, and he protects the offices of Blizzard North.
Q: Will Blizzard be part of the Cendant booth at ECTS?
A: Yes
Q: Is 3dfx support in D2 totally out of the question?
A: As Diablo II is not a 3D based product, we do not have any 3Dfx support in. Should we find ways to enhance the game play by supporting 3Dfx, we would certainly examine its implementation.
Q: Will there be more "story" elements int eh game, such as when we reach a critical point? e.g. more cinematics?
A: Yes. The cinematic team is working hand in hand with the Diablo II story writers to integrate the cinematic sequences with the storyline. They have some pretty ambitious plans, and it promises to be very unique and compelling.
Q: Will ther be multiple difficulty levels in D2 (e.g Normal, Nightmare, Hell etc)?
A: We haven't decided that yet, but people did seem to like that about Diablo. Still up for grabs -- we'll have to wait and see.
Q: How linear is the D2 storyline?
A: We want there to be parts where your decisions affect the way that NPCs react to your character, but we also want to tell a strong story. I really think that there will be a strong linear tale that the player cna affect in some areas.
Q: How many spells and/or abilities can we expect each character to have?
A: Lots. Other than that, it isn't locked down yet. MANY more than in Diablo.
Q: When will we see Baal and Mephisto? Has any artwork been done for them yet?
A: The Greater Evils are a reclusive lot and are hard to find, so we don't have anything to show. Besides --- don't you want to be surprised?
Q: How will D2 be more like an RPG than Diablo was?
A: We are focusing on specific character development, and much more integrated storyline and compelling multiplayer gaming that encourages interaction between characters.
Q: How do you plan to vary the types of monsters we meet in the game?
A: We will be using the same type of componant system to build some of the monsters as we are using for the characters. This means a group of skeletons will be armed differently. Also, we are creating MANY more monster types with differing abilities, weapons and spells.
Q: Why did you cancel Warcraft Adventures?
A: We did not feel that in its current state it lived up to the high level that we and you expect from our products. It was an extremely difficult decision to stop working on the title, but we wanted to live up to our credo of making only truly great games. The time required to make Warcraft Adventures the type of game that Blizzard fans expect would have been prohibitive to shipping the title. We do want to take some of the ideas from Warcraft Adventures and use them in any future Warcraft products.
Q: Are there any plans for a StarCraft 2?
A: We have not decided on where the Starcraft universe is going to go, except for what is being done in Brood War.
Q: Was Jeff Vaughn (webmaster) one of the employees who left?
A: Yes. Jeff is a personal friend and we are sorry to see him (and all those who moved on to pursue other interests) go. Shlonglor is still doing some great work on the site, and we made sure the .scm of the week went up as planned.
Q: Have you ever considered any game you have released to have been a failure?
A: No, because we wait until a game is right before we release it. We are all intensely proud of every title we have ever released.
Q: Any chance of another Blackthorne?
A: Blackthorne is an Interplay property, and you would need to ask them that. I acutally opened my PC copy 2 nights ago and had one of our new guys play it. It was STILL damn fun!
Q: Does Blizzard have any plans to open any new development studios in the future?
A: We have recently started up a second development team here in Irvine, and we really like to grown the company slowly and carefully. Hmmm, maybe I can convince them to let me head up Blizzard Maui...;)
Q: How much more interactive will the towns be in DII?
A: NPCs will walk the streets, come up to you and initiiate quests and basically be much more alive. Tristram was very static and we want to make the towns and settlements in DII alive.
Q: Will there be a repeat of the CD-KEY debacle (where information from users' registries was uploaded to Battle.net)? If so, will users be informed first?
A: Blizzard Entertainment has agreed not to upload non-Blizzard information from users registeries and will require anyone who licenses our technology to agree to the same policy.
Q: Do you have an estimate as to how far through DII you are?
A: We were womewhere in the neighborhood of 30% complete at E3. I would guess we might be in the 37%-43% range.
Q: Will players be able to create more than 10 characters in D2?
A: We understand that there are families that play and want to have mulitple characters for each memebre, and we will be examingin this issue as we continue to refine our battle.net strategy for Diablo II.
Q: Any hints as to what the two unannounced products might be?
A: I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you ...;)
Q: Will the monster AI in DII be any different than Diablo?
A: Yes, we are working on making the monsters more unique in their individual AIs.
Q: Will we be able to customize or edit DII (e.g. create skins)?
A: Probably not, but agian, we are not 100% sure at this point.
Q: Do you still think that early '99 is a realistic release date?
A: We have not set any specific release date other than 1999.
Q: Why is it that you decided to hold meetings like this one? What are the inspirations behind these webmaster-Blizzard chats?
A: We wanted to make sure tha we were responding directly to the people who care enough about our games to devote entire websites to them. We get many requests for interviews, updates and so forth, and this seemed like a great way to meet all of these requests.
Q: Will Blizzard have more chats like this one?
A: Yes, we will be having these chat sessions every 6-8 weeks. We will also be bringing a lot of different Blizzard people in to chat with you, as well.
Q: Is the threat of cheating and/or hacking going to be stopped in Diablo II?
A: We are focussing a great deal of time, attention and programmer effort to making cheating a non-issue in Diablo II. We want a persistant economy and we want characters to really mean something, so we are very focused on the cheating issue.
Q: What enhancements can we expect in War Platinum?
A: We will be updating Warcrat II and IIx to Windows 95/Nt and DirectX support. We will also have Battle.net support, ladders, tournaments, setting game speed before the game starts, and so forth. We want to keep the game playable for many years to come.
Q: What is the privacy policy on the info released in this chat?
A: The purpose of this chat is to get more information into your hands. We expect (and intend) you to post this information and to use it to make your pages even better places for Blizzard gamers to visit. Thanks all for coming to chat.