Bill Roper: Diablo II will be played in a really less linear way than Diablo. But, you know, even the games with really good scenarios, if they don't seem to be linear, are so anyway. The reason why Diablo looked like so linear was that his playing area was really small and implicated numerous come-and-go from one same point to an other. In fact, we realized a lot of progress recently in the art of telling a story through a game, notably in StarCraft and Brood War. And we will use this experience in Diablo II, in particularly with the insertion of cinematic scenes.

GS. F.: Will the world of Diablo II overpass the caricatured piling of dungeon's levels of the first one?

Bill Roper.: In the sequel, the player will truly have the feeling of fighting to save the entire world, other than just a poor six inhabitants town. In the world of Diablo II, all the non-player characters will have their own occupations and motivations. Each world will have also his own atmosphere. The first was really classic, in the genre medieval-fantastic, near of the one of Diablo; the Act 2, will have a quite different ambience, with a more desertic set. Of the 16 or 17 artists who work exclusively on Diablo II, a part is concentrating on the creation and animation of the characters, while the other is taking care of the environment (setting), of the outside but also of the decoration of the rooms of the buildings. In fact, by accident, we had in our team an ancient architect, which we asked to create the interior design. And this worked so well that finally we recruited other persons with the same profile. As for the act 3, all I can say for now is that it will be inspired by the jungle theme...

GS. F.: Talk about the characters of the game. Will they really be different from one another?

B.R.: The amazon excels in ranged weapons, javelins and bows, and can also give foot kicks. The paladin hits with his shield, what causes more damages than the foot kick of the amazone and push enemies behind. He also has quite effective spells against living-deads. The sorceress is one of the rare character class who masters particular skills, which are passive but a lot of spells will benefit from them. For example, if she learns to use fire, all the spells implicating fire will cost less to cast. If she masters cold, all the cold-based spells that she will throw will have a chance to ignore the armor of their target. The barbarian will master the different weapon types, like the handling of the sword. As for the necromancer, he is certainly the weaker of the characters when we talk about non-ranged weapons or the offensive spells. In fact, his strength lives in is his capacity to cast golems or living-deads, cast maledictions or use the bodies of his victims, by making them explode for example. The necromancer is a real recycling master!

GS.F.: What do you plan to do to restrict Player-Killing on Battle.net?

B.R.: We tried to find solutions that are sociably acceptable. What we want to avoid at all price is the systematic Player Killing that certain players use just for the fun of slaughtering characters weaker than their. But, we wish not to legislate all. In Diablo II, it's the big difference with the first one, you will no longer be able to automatically target another character. You will in fact have to target the others manually. This will make things a lot harder than it seems when there will be combats between players in particular. Also, because we will use a client/server architecture, the players will not be able to cheat as easily as it was in the past. So if a character attacks with a dagger which causes 5 millions damage points, the Battle.net server will know that it's not possible and stop (invalidate) the action. Of course, there will be arenas where the players who wants to fight will be free to do so without getting on the nerves of others, and bet a price, which could be items or money. In fact, we want to find ways for the players to Player Kill, without acting like imbeciles.

GS.F.: Will there be over-powerful characters, like there was a lot in the Diablo universe?

B.R.: We did, this time, go with potions and other items which make the character stronger for a short period of time and no longer permanently, like it was in Diablo with the potions which gave an additional strength point for example. Even if, to avoid the possible excess possible, we tried to make these items really rare. For example, you fight against a monster which throws fire balls and killed you many times before. You have on you strength potions and others allowing you to resist to fire. Well, you will drink these just before fighting him, and the beneficial effects will disappear after. You are also equipped with a sword which has some ice attacks charge; you will also maybe use it at this occasion.

Which means that for some seconds you will have big advantages, but no more. Of course, in solo mode it will always be possible to cheat, because all the data of the character will be on the player's computer. But in this case, the player will ruin his own game experience, and not the other's!