In designing the Wizard, the Diablo 3 developers made a conscious decision to focus on what they call "high magic." They said the Wizard was designed with a brash and ambitious personality in mind; she would not choose the safe, easy, or common way to do things. So, when they were looking at possibilities for the first spell a player would use, the designers chose to avoid something like a fireball or frostbolt. Rather than having an elemental attack, they wanted a more "pure" magic attack. As a result, they chose Magic Missile. They explained that Magic Missile was easy to customize and modify; it would make more sense for things like homing missiles, or launching more than one at a time. Another important spell in that regard was Arcane Orb. Functionally, it appeared somewhat similar to Diablo 2's Frozen Orb, but despite being further down the "Arcane" talent tree than Magic Missile, it defined the look and the type of damage for that tree. The Arcane tree has several interesting spells, including Slow Time, which drops a giant permeable orb on the ground which, as the name suggests, slows time within it. Projectiles and enemies inside the orb become very easy to dodge and avoid. The developers said it was originally Stop Time, but that created difficulties for multiplayer balance. Disintegrate is another great new spell within the tree, dubbed a "face melter" by the designers. It launches a continuous beam of energy that you can sweep around the room at your leisure. The longer it hits an enemy, the more damage it does per second, and it has quite a range. Some familiar spells will be returning from Diablo 2, such as Charged Bolt and Teleport. The Blizzard spell will be back as well, which the developers say they paid particular attention to, given that it shares a name with their company. It will be part of the "Storm" skill tree, along with Frost Nova and Electrocute (the new Chain Lightning). The theme for that tree is control of the weather, which was chosen because it "feels epic." The last tree is "Conjure," and its focus is the creation of tools. Hydra is returning as a Conjure skill, and you can make weapons with which to smite your enemies. Shacknews has a look at each of the actual trees and the skills within.
The skill system for Diablo 3 went through a lengthy design process, and the developers admit that it's not quite finished. Most importantly, they will be implementing the ability to respec, the lack of which was one of Diablo 2's biggest weaknesses. They wanted players to not worry about misplacing points. In Diablo 2, it was common to hold onto skill points as a character leveled up, thus decreasing the actual reward for leveling. They wanted to encourage players to get the rewards and immediately enjoy them. Blizzard went on to show us about a half-dozen experimental implementations of the skill system, and how they weighed the pros and cons of the methods used in the previous Diablo games and World of Warcraft. They tried out a radial skill tree, skill "wheels," skill cards (dropped by monsters, which you could combine in different ways to acquire particular abilities), and even a humorous "horadric cube" three-dimensional skill tree. As they tested all of those, they found their design philosophy of "different but worse isn't better; better is better" coming into play, and went back to what worked. The system they currently use is an evolution of Diablo 2's skill trees. There are a few major differences. First, in order to move down to a more powerful tier, you need to spend a certain number of points in the previous tiers. To get Hydra, a 4th-tier Conjure talent, you need to spend at least 15 points in the Conjure tree. Second, the developers decided that not all skills needed huge point investments. They didn't want players dumping 20 points in one skill, moving to another, and doing the same. As as result, activated abilities now tend to take just one point to acquire. Passive skills, such as a percentage-based damage increase, have room for many points, and will be the primary method of advancing to further tiers. The goal was for players to have six activated abilities in common use; they felt that Diablo 2 forced players to focus on just two or three, to the detriment of the gameplay experience.
The Rune system also received a complete redesign. Instead of socketing runes into gear, you'll use them to modify your skills. Each skill can be affected by one rune at a time (which seems to preclude the possibility of runewords), and each rune affects a skill differently. The goal for this was to diversify gameplay even further. Two players with the same class and spec can still use abilities that look and behave quite differently depending on their rune selection. The runes are replaceable, and they will have tiers of power, and corresponding drop rates. The developers say it will change your gameplay as you level, and encourage you to experiment with different runes. They also showed us several examples of how the runes work. First was Teleport. It's primarily a defensive spell; you use it to get away from enemies quickly. However, if you put a Striking rune on Teleport, it will deal damage where you land, effectively making it an offensive spell. Another rune caused what they likened to a "transporter malfunction," spraying destructive energy around the Wizard. Another example was Skull of Flame, a Witchdoctor ability. Normally, the spell is sort of like tossing a grenade; it hits an enemy and explodes, and that's the (very entertaining) end of it. With the Multistrike rune, it will hit enemies, explode, and bounce to the next enemy. With a Power rune, it will leave a small pool of fire where it explodes. The last example was Electrocute. A Multistrike rune will increase the number of jumps, and a Lethality rune will cause targets to explode when they are hit. All in all, it looks extremely fun, and quite cool.
Another thing the developers wanted to do in Diablo 3 was to make everything more "visceral," to give it an exciting visual impact that would keep the player interested in watching everything that goes on. The Wizard was designed as a "light show," with lightning, huge glowing tornadoes, and destructive beams of energy. Witchdoctors use more indirect magic. Instead of spraying fire, they'll summon a horde of bats, set them on fire, and funnel them at an enemy. Similarly, instead of creating a Wall of Fire, the developers took it another step toward crazy and gave Witchdoctors Zombie Wall, which is exactly what it sounds like. In order to keep Barbarians interesting, they'll be able to call on the power of The Ancients for certain special attacks. Another area of particular focus was death animations. Since players will be wading through a sea of monsters, Blizzard wanted to keep the monster deaths from becoming stale or part of the background. So, Diablo 3 will feature a variety of death scenes for each monster. Some deaths will be dependent on damage; the more you do, the messier things get. You'll also see what are called "critical deaths" that tend to feature explosions. Certain skills will have their own death animations; acid will melt an enemy, and Disintegrate will do just that. Rare and special monsters will have interesting animations with extra detail. There is also the possibility for unique player deaths from bosses.
A variety of other features were discussed, such as the inventory system. Gone is the grid system of Diablo 2. Weapons and armor now seem to take up a uniform amount of space, and the amount of total space was increased. What's more, there are now bag slots, and bags which drop off monsters. Playing through the demo level, I quickly acquired three bags which gave me an extra slot apiece. Larger bags will drop in later levels. Also, items have a color-coded background, so it's easy to see which are junk, which are rare, set pieces, etc. A question mark is visible over items that have yet to be identified. The belt system has been replaced by an action bar similar but much smaller than the one in World of Warcraft. It has room for several skills and potions. Potions themselves are much less common; instead, many monsters drop health orbs that will refill your red orb between fights. The developers wanted potions to be used in emergencies, not for nigh-invincibility throughout the game. They say the change opens up more avenues for challenging the player without simply dumping a ton of damage on him. They felt that escape was too easy in Diablo 2. You needn't worry that this change will result in annoyingly long corpse runs, however. The new checkpoint system goes a long way toward making recovery easier. As you go through dungeons and the outside world, you'll frequently come across checkpoints that mark your progress. When you die, you'll respawn at the nearest checkpoint. This keeps the corpse run short and solves the problem of having a hundred monsters waiting for you after you fled up a flight of stairs. Another player-friendly change will be the "toning down" of elemental resistances and immunities. They won't be gone, but they won't be the same brick wall they often were for some classes in Diablo 2.
That must suck.