Torget Swedish Interview Translation

In Diablo II the player returns to a dark and gothic fantasy world, as one of five different characters the player will explore the world of Diablo II, a journey that will lead you over unknown countries, fights with new enemies, find new treasuries and discover ancient mysteries.

To follow up the success of Diablo the gang behind the game, worked hard to program and create a sequel that they are counting on having finished later this year. When I talked to the creators behind it you really notice that they have developed the game, the graphics, the feeling and the idea that made the previous game so popular.

Diablo won the title "Game of the year" in many counties all over the world. To add more of what was in the previous game but with new excitement and new ideas, must be hard work. When the player returns to a dark world troubled by evil, as one of five characters, it is to perform a number of hard quests that will free Khanduras forever from the evil. Some of the improvements that the players will see, is a bigger world that contains more quests to solve, more complex characters, both those you will play and those played by the computer. There are now four towns in the game, with surrounding wilderness and every town will have several caves and catacombs that the players can explore. One of the major improvements is the advanced fighting system, that contains different techniques and spells depending on which character the player chooses.

"Our goal with Diablo II is to give our fans as much as possible after they have played the first game. That means more areas, more monsters, more spells, more weapons and armor, more items, a more developed history, the possibility to play more people in a game and improved games over Battle.net", tells the guys behind Diablo II. "We are convinced that we will offer much more of all this and also add many new things that will improve the game much more."

-Diablo II has a completely new engine both for the game and the graphics explains the programmers.

"The game has support for 3D-graphics that will go with OpenGL or Glide and we have laid down much work to improve the light effects in the game so you will get a feeling of warmth and depth. Even though you don't need to have a 3D-card to play the game so we wanted to give those who have one something extra."

In Diablo II it is not just one town that you will save but a whole world. It will be four different towns and each town will have its own guard. Diablo will be in the last town while Andariel will be the first guardian that you will meet. To come to the next town, you have to kill the previous town's evil guardian. You can travel back to a town where you have been and there will be quests where you have to travel between towns to complete it. If you play on Battle.net it will be possible to go as far in the game as the creator has been. If that person has completed two towns the other will also be able to go there. Computer-controlled humans will inhabit the towns and some of those persons you met in Diablo will you meet in Diablo II.

It seems that Europeans don't appear to be interested in internet-possibilities in games, so they have spent a lot of time and work on the online-functions. The developers think that many new gamers will think that this seems so much fun that they will try to play over the internet for the first time.

"We have always worked on improving Battle.net and Diablo II will give many more services on Battle.net. We will let players save their characters on our servers and that will prevent cheating. We will also add many more servers in USA and other places around the world. By making it simple to use the online-gaming services and increase the width, depth and the stability on our network we think that we can continue to get more and more players to use our services."

While the programmers continuously talked of improvements, a tactic that many programmers use, I wanted to know more about new spells, monsters and the abilities that they have said to influence the playing.

Most of the new things are suggestions from those who have played Diablo, and improvements that they wanted in the sequel. Most have been small things, for example running, a better mini-map, and the possibility to store things so you doesn't have to carry them and the ability to create guilds when you play multiplayer, and these things will be in Diablo II.

"We have tried to do more than just build on the success with Diablo, but really tried to increase the whole game. We have many new monsters we have tried to separate them in different ways to fight and equipment, so there are more tactics in the fights, than just cutting them down. We have also made some passive skills like the possibility to block an enemy's attack. Each character that the player can use has 30 skills/spells so the variations in Diablo II are pretty impressive.

But with so many games that are similar to Diablo, that have been released since Diablo came out, doesn't it feel like it is going to be hard on the market for another game in the same genre?

"You must remember that we have made many games, inclusing WarCraft, and I would claim that the sequel would be very different than the original. It's just like we think that Diablo II will be a completely new experience. The only route we can take is to make the new game have so many new things that people want to play it. We think that we will be able to present a totally new experience in role-playing games that is simple to learn/understand but that is hard to master.

"Many other games have a too sharp learning curve and get too hard, too soon. Summarised we offer PLEASURE. We always want to get people to site down in their chairs and say "WOW". 2D-games don't seem as exciting as others, but we want to show people a 2D-game that has never been seen before. You can go where you want without suffering any loading-times and the levels will be so alive that you really get stuck in them."

"RPG has so much to offer, so much that it is a long road to go and Diablo II will be a part of that evolution. Since we are in the front of the developing, probably most people think that Blizzard is innovative and go-ahead. What can be developed more? That list has no end: new kinds of items, new magic, allow skills to make different effects depending on how they are used and make the challenges in the game more fun.

"When we talk about the learning-curve we come into a thing that is called "experience-development" that makes it possible to develop their character much more as they want. In every level that your character increases you get some experience points that the player can distribute to develop their skills. This enables two Sorceresses on the same level to look very different, because the players have put their points on different skills. With 30 different skills and spells on every character, you can expect to see very different characters when you play on Battle.net."

In Diablo II the players in multiplayer will be able to trade items on special markets. You can open a trade directly in the game you are in , and then you can safely buy, sell and trade things with each player. When you are finished with the trading you just jump back in the game and continue where you started the trading.

One of our strongest things is to make good views on our games, and Diablo II is no exception. Blizzard thinks that a game should be easy to learn but hard to master and a good view is a big part of that.

To get the speech in the game as good as possible, they have used voice-actors for the roles in the game. The same musicians as in Diablo make the music.

"These is often details in games that many forget when they make the game, but Blizzard has always tried to make as thorough work as they can with sound and music and we have worked the same way here as with graphics, programming, the movie-parts and the design."

The game will have five different characters that the player can choose between, and each one has their own special qualities and abilities. The characters are: the Amazon, the Barbarian, the Necromancer, the Paladin and the Sorceress.

When I asks the team to summarise Diablo II they say:

"Diablo II will meet and exceed all expectations from the millions of gamers that played the previous game, but it will still fit the market. We strive to make games that are fun and addictive and Diablo II contains all ingredients that it needs to be a giant-success.

- Translated by Aldur of Diablo 2 North