Flux´s PCAccelerator Preview Analysis

Introduction

The Diablo II Preview Article in the June issue of PC Accelerator magazine is probably the best I've read to date. Very thorough and comprehensive, they touch on all of the characters, the first three acts, lots of spells are mentioned, and also there are a lot of tie ins to info from Diablo and other games. It's the best over all Diablo II Preview Article since the Gamestar.de article that was released in February, and I can't really compare that one directly, since the Gamestar magazine article was in German, so I only read translations and lists of the highlights. I believe the Gamestar article broke more new info, and of course it came with the 80meg gameplay avi, which had tons of new info also, so that's sort of the trump card

However, the purpose here isn't to compare and contrast. It's to fill you in on the info in the PCXL article. I do recommend buying the magazine, since in this analysis I'll be covering only the new info, not the mass of the article, which is an excellent primer on Diablo II and is full of background information.

There are a few factual errors in the article, Firewall is given the description of Blaze, Andariel is referred to as the boss of the act with Lut Gholein in it (act two when she's the act one boss), they say that mana regenerated in Diablo, and a couple of other boo-boo's, but nothing major. And there is a lot of new info. The biggest highlight; all of the the Sorceress' spells being named and described.

Let's get into it.

Cover Info

For some intro information, the cover of the magazine features a render we premiered last weekend. You can see it here. The text on the cover reads,

    World Exclusive
    DIABLO II

    We went to the DEPTHS OF HELL
    and All we brought back was
    this LOUSY FEATURE.
    packed with:
    Exclusive screenshots
    New character classes
    And a devilish bevy of babes

The 'devilish bevy of babes' refers to their practice of slapping in a bunch of pictures of models and actresses on pages where they show the Sorceress and Amazon, and generally making a lot of sexual comments and references. I've never seen the mag, but apparently that's their style, and I guess it works for them, so no comment. Well, just one, I can pretty much see pictures of models and actresses anywhere, but new Diablo II info is a bit harder to come by. So guess what I would prefer to see them focus on?

The first page of the article has the title and a short intro, but is mostly this pic, another render that we premiered last week, featuring the Barbarian in all his glory.

The second page of the article, where the real writing begins, has a few paragraphs of Blizzard history, back info on Diablo, and more. Interesting stuff, but not what I'm focusing on here, so you'll have to buy the mag to read it. Towards the end of this page they get to some Diablo II intro info, but nothing we don't' already know. Basic character class info, etc. There is an interesting quote from Dave Brevick though, "We're trying not to break anything from the first game." offered Brevick. "We're also eliminating cheating and want to add more dynamics to combat as well as improve the depth, options, and branches of the quests." Rather a strong and definite statement about cheating there.

Acts

The next page gets into the real Diablo II info. They cover Act One in some detail, but nothing really new. One detail about NPC actions is new, as they say that important NPC's will actually come running up to you (probably in town only) to tell you vital information. Much more interactive there than the first game was. Also, an Act One quest is described, "In act 1 you're asked by Kashya, Captain of the Rogues, to perform a quest. Successfully kill Blood Raven (a heretical priest, and you earn the right to hire Rogue mercenaries. Failure to do this means you can't hire Rogues until you attain a certain level."

A bit of a funny detail about this. We first heard "Blood Raven" mentioned very briefly in a past Webmaster chat. This touched off some debate between myself and a few other Diablo II enthusiasts, as we were all of the opinion that "Blood Raven" must be some sort of monster in the "Foul Crow" family, and we were looking at older screenshots of Foul Crows, trying to see if any of them looked different, probably with a crimson tinge, to match the name Blood Raven. And now in this preview it turns out that it's actually the name of an evil NPC.

Anyway, the article continues with a quick over view of Act Two, and then to what we've been itching for, Act Three info. The name of the town you are based in for Act Three is given again, Kurast, which as we know from a recent Blizzard press release, is set on a river delta in tropical rain forest. The preview states, "In this rainforest setting, where dense foliage limits your movement to streams and waterways..." This is some very interesting info here, as it would really change the play dynamic, if you actually can't walk through the woods in some places. Not to mention that you are sloshing along through the streams, which might well limit your rate of movement. That was a feature Blizzard floated about D2 long ago, but we've not heard anything more on it since.

The plot of Act Three is hinted at a bit, with comments about their being a powerful cult in the area, the head priest of which has fallen under the control of an evil demon (possibly Diablo) who is using him to turn his followers against your character. Incidentally, in the game plot the area of Kurast was the birthplace of Zakarum, the religion of light, of which the Paladin is a follower. So it sounds like he would be fighting against his own sect, though they would misguided and led astray. There are also mentions of all manner of awful beasties in the swamps and forest, and there is a picture from a cinematic showing some large tentacled monstrosity.

There isn't any info on Act Four/The Finale given, except to say that it's got what's promised to be an incredible ending. Which I think we were all expecting already.

Onto the next page there is a lot of info about battle.net and items, but nothing new, until a mention of monsters dropping items more appropriate to their personal set ups. A monster with a sword and shield is more likely to drop a sword or shield, for example. But this isn't 100% correlated, of course, just more likely. They also mention the new game feature that allows you to press a key and see all dropped items light up. The interesting thing is that this now works off of the Tab key, while it was tied to Control, and then Alt in the past. Probably this isn't set in stone yet, and the popular expectation is that your keyboard controls will be much more customizable in Diablo II, so things like this should operate at your own discretion.

Characters

The article next swings into discussing the five characters. In the introduction there is an interesting bit about Firebolt vs. Fireball. They say that it might be more useful to stack points in Firebolt right from the start, rather than saving them up for Fireball, since it might have less range and duration. We've not heard this before, but it's an interesting idea, that lower levels of spells might have less range, rather than just being like they were in Diablo, less-damaging and more mana-expensive.

Discussing the Necromancer, there is some new info. The Skill Trees are named, and there is a change. The Necromancer's Skill Trees are listed as: Summoning and Control, Poison and Bone, Curses. The last listing of these was from a webmaster chat in mid-December, and then they were called, Summoning and Undead, Curses, Poisons. So a small change, with two of the names changing, but a potentially important one, especially if the locations of various skills within the trees have changed as well.

The coolest Necromancer info is where they fully describe how Corpse Explosion will work. It's very juicy. The Necro casts it on a just-dead monster, and as he does the corpse explodes (hence the name) in messy fashion, dealing shrapnel damage to any nearby monsters, and if one of them dies the Necromancer can hit it with the same spell, and get a sort of domino effect, tearing into a pack of monsters and turning their strength in numbers into a disadvantage. Could be some interesting strategic effects with that one.

On to the Paladin, and they list his skill tree right off: Auras, Healing and Undead, Combat. So no changes from what we had last heard for him. A few sample skills are listed, including, Resist Fire, Resist Cold, Thorns (an aura), Remove Curse, and Fanaticism. (A spell that the Paladin casts on himself. It raises damage for a short duration, of course at the cost of some mana.)

For the Sorceress, no skill tree changes. We have the same Fire, Cold, and Lightning skills. However there is a huge new chunk of info, in a picture detailing the name of every one of her skills, and also having a short summary of how twenty-seven of them work.

Next comes the Amazon, and her skill trees are unchanged, "Bow and Crossbow Skills; Healing, Movement and Repair Skills; Spear and Javelin Skills. However they do list a new skill, Plague Javelin. As Poison Javelin has long been confirmed, and there are three similar icons, all looking to be some form of poison damage added to a thrown Javelin, this is certainly one of them. They also list Repair Item as a skill, but as one of her trees has been called "Healing, Movement, and Repair Skills" for months, this isn't a real surprise.

Lastly we get to the new fella, the Barbarian. His skill trees are War Cries, Masteries, Combat. Short and sweet. Rally, Use Axes, and Armor Repair are his listed sample skills. The Armor repair one is interesting, since that sounds like he must have other types of repair, (weapon repair?) and probably can get very good at one or the other. One would hope that there is some use to this, either that durability will decline much more quickly so having field repairs will be worthwhile, or maybe it will be much harder to get repairs from an NPC?

Battle.net and Guild Halls

The next page is mostly on Battle.net. It gives a short run down of the Diablo experience on Bnet. Early fun, but soon ruined by duping, hacking, PK'ing, etc. Then they mention the Diablo II changes. Rewritten code so it's now a client/server model, with the char info stored on the Bnet server, plus some quick mentions of the new trading system being much improved. New info comes in with the comment that "More powerful items are going to cost vast sums." so that high level characters will still have something to spend their money on. Also, "Unique items can be added to the world, sparking treasure hunts, and quests will be designed to give higher level characters a real challenge."

Also they talk briefly about Guild Halls, comparing their perpetual status to persistent world games like Everquest. For Guild Hall operational info, it's just an elaboration of what we already have heard, but it bears repeating. The Guildmaster is the one who first buys the hall, though they say that it will take the combined gold of numerous characters to afford one. The Guildmaster sets the name of the guild, the online display colors, and maintains the list of who is allowed to enter the hall. The hall then exists persistently online, as a sort of private hideaway. The Guildmaster can also force a tithe on members, where they must pay to retain access to the hall, and also the is a sort of guild treasury, that only the Guildmaster can access. To throw in a bit of democracy, "Elections may be added to allow coups." They also say that many functions and features of Battle.net will be decided on and fine-tuned during the beta test.

More Features

The final page talks about the likely inclusion of large numbers of wandering creatures, so you wouldn't always have a save retreat path. Also, they say there will be testing of the stamina gauge during the beta, to fine tune it. For faster movement around the Acts, there are town portals, and also "...a waypointing system that links locations in which you have traded." So this should satisfy a lot of the complaining about how slow it was to walk around in town in Diablo 1.

The lack of level loading times (They load during the cinematics between Acts, and also in the background during play.) is also praised, and there is a quote from Bill Roper about how much more immersive the game is without the waiting periods between levels. The Day/Night system is also covered, with mention of certain quests and monsters only being around during the day or night, and also certain items being more or less powerful, such as a Moon Sword.

3D cards are covered, with potentially bad news for non-3Dfx users, as PC Accelerator says that it looks somewhat unlikely that other than 3Dfx will be enabled. This is a contradiction of what Blizzard has been saying lately, that they are working hard on enabling other 3D chipsets to work, and that they are pretty sure they will manage it. Apparently the technological issues are substantial.

The last bit of the article covers release dates, everyone's favorite topic, and they say Blizzard is hoping for a speedy and successful beta test, and a final release around September. This is suprising, as Bill Roper said "Halloween" in a recent interview, and we've heard in other recent previews 4th quarter for sure. I'm still betting November or later myself, but again, it largely depends on how quickly and efficiently the game-balancing issues can be resolved in the beta test. Here and in a number of other places PC Accelerator mentions their beta testing contest, where six winners will be flown to San Francisco to beta test D2 with the PCXL staff in their offices. You get two days there, all you can play, with food and spending money and hotel also covered.

The article ends there, and so does this analysis. Thanks to Brian for scanning and sending in the pages of the article for us to read and comment on, and thanks to PC Accelerator for posting such good info. You can check out their website, and let's all hope that they post some of the new Act Three images or other new pics on their website (or emails them here so I can post them ;) since scans are nice, but nothing beats the original full size/full quality.

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Skill of the Week

Iron Maiden
Harkening back to an inquisitional torture, the Iron Maiden curse causes all damage an enemy does to you to be returned to that enemy as well.  Part of the Necromancer´s
Curses, it is a powerful addition to his arsenal.

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