Eye-Candy, Screens & Movies (20th June) - 49 new things!

[Nefarius]

Yes there will be quite a lot, largely with graphics that haven't been used in D2 before (for example there are 8 different types of Katanas, each with their own unique item graphics too etc).

EDIT:

I'll make my request broad so it's up to you. What's your favorite addition that you've made (that isn't top secret right now) and can we get a screenshot if there isn't one already??

The favorite thing off the top of my head falls under top secret (a public screenshot of this would break the surprise and reveal too much of a sidequest). Though theres a share of other neat things I've added that are "second to that" but they are hard to screenshot (proper RTS-like AI threat evaluation etc, target specific skill selection, self-awareness of the AI [don't hit people while you have IM on yourself OR they got thorns etc, unless there is no way out]. So a not so distant third pick is probably much of the new spell code, much of it has been screenshotted so far (Generated Items, Multiple Homing Missiles, Random Colors, Random Missiles etc).

[Jakebow]

Random question.. lol
I was wondering if you'd ever include some of the Diablo 2 lore into the game itself. As in; some of the books and side quests and adventures that they went through. Also; i've been looking for this for ages. Do you plan to make the T-Town map the same as in Diablo 1? That would be amazing.

That and well.. i've always wanted to face all the other key NPCs from Diablo 1 and Diablo 1 Hellfire in T-Town. Never made sence why only Griswald and Wirt were there. What happened to the witch? and what happened to Peppin? :O

Amazing work so far however. I'm finding myself anxious to play this mod. Often checking back daily just to see what updates you have for store for us. =) I already know half my life is going to be gone when this thing comes out. (Can you say; all nighters?)

Anyway back on topic. Do you have any screenshots of the expanded maps? Not revealing sidequests or anything; just to give us a scope? Maybe a diagram? Also; ever need a beta tester let me know. I'm a at home student. Don't do much else.

[Nefarius]

Random question.. lol
I was wondering if you'd ever include some of the Diablo 2 lore into the game itself. As in; some of the books and side quests and adventures that they went through. Also; i've been looking for this for ages. Do you plan to make the T-Town map the same as in Diablo 1? That would be amazing.

That and well.. i've always wanted to face all the other key NPCs from Diablo 1 and Diablo 1 Hellfire in T-Town. Never made sence why only Griswald and Wirt were there. What happened to the witch? and what happened to Peppin? :O

Me and Vendanna plan to have some cameos appreaences of stuff from D1 (mostly) in one way or another (can't be revealed in detail here ofc). However the actual storyline and related things has nothing to do with D2/D1 or any other existing game, we are comming up with it entirely ourselves .

Anyway back on topic. Do you have any screenshots of the expanded maps? Not revealing sidequests or anything; just to give us a scope? Maybe a diagram? Also; ever need a beta tester let me know. I'm a at home student. Don't do much else.

At least one of the screenshots posted before had one of the new level types featured in it. To the most part however we are currently working on other aspects, rest assure that once we put focus on the maps and environments there will be screenshots of lots of this stuff posted too

[Jakebow]

Wow. Honestly? More and more of these screenshots make me want to play this amazing mod; (Or would it be something more intense) everyday. I have a request for a screenshot and a question.
Screenshot first. Out of curiosity I have wanted to know if your planning to change the waypoint system; if you already have. You've said your including more maps and side quests, does this also reflect the increased number or Waypoints?

As for question. Do you plan to change the hud at all? Along with other graphics through out the game? Including inventory and other intergrated gameplay mechanics? You've said its going to be a whole new game. =D I'd love to see some new flashy inventory features.

[Nefarius]

The waypoints will be to the largest part means of traveling between the multiple towns/villages of every country (there are going to be multiple towns per 'act'), you will also start in the town you've last visited when entering/starting a game.

As for the GUI, this is going to be one of the last things to tackle as it isn't really part of the gameplay, there will be consierable changes to functionality of some parts though (the code for the spell menu is going to be completely redesigned obviously).

There are also more in-game changeable options on new menus like this here: album_page.php?pic_id=2823

[Jakebow]

Oooh I see. Very nice. How will the Townportal system work? Will it be defined to the town last visted i'm assuming? Interesing about the whole spell menu system being revisited. =) I'm looking forward to that for sure.
The reason why I asked about the GUI is because, well, admit it. Over the years the same GUI seems to bore. Will you be adding new tile sets as well throughout the acts? Sorry for the questions. Just curious as.. heck.. now.

[Nefarius]

Oooh I see. Very nice. How will the Townportal system work? Will it be defined to the town last visted i'm assuming? Interesing about the whole spell menu system being revisited. =) I'm looking forward to that for sure.
The reason why I asked about the GUI is because, well, admit it. Over the years the same GUI seems to bore. Will you be adding new tile sets as well throughout the acts? Sorry for the questions. Just curious as.. heck.. now.

1.) Yes, thats how the portals should end up working.
2.) Yep, there will doubtlessly be tiling included. Though large emphasis will be put on creating new random mazes more then preset maps (I didn't code that for nothing after all )

[Jakebow]

In a previous thread you mentioned the color system is one of the oldest features in the new coding. How about a screen shot of the possible color and what it looks like on armor/weapons?

[Nefarius]

In a previous thread you mentioned the color system is one of the oldest features in the new coding. How about a screen shot of the possible color and what it looks like on armor/weapons?

Check the recent screenshot

[Jakebow]

Awesome!
Will you be able to select the color you want later on? Or is it random?

[Nefarius]

You will be able to buy a oil like item to colorize equipment from one of the npcs, those will copy their color to the item.

The colorizing overrides any other color setting the item has, so it can be used on any equipment to set its color (have a red unique armor and want it to be blue? no problem )

[AdmiralCrackbar]

I love the new screenshots! Here's some comments

The banhammer is AWESOME and a great idea Instantly kills trolls
Will the firewall be cast-able by the character, or will it just be for uniques? Cool idea, by the way! Side question - what's that green aura do? I never figured it out
Def. vs. Undead & Demons - Good call, it just makes sense
The Fetish auras make them faster That sounds like swarm city in less than a second, and death soon after if you're not paying uber attention.
Necro archers - Another sensible addition.
I love the negative plane effect! The idea of it is also pretty cool - about how it dispels buffs and can drain mana or life. Does this effect come about through an unlucky shrine encounter?
I like the stone curse effect. Can you cast spells or drink potions in this state? If so, I suggest you change it so you can't do anything, just to freak the player out a bit. Try not to make it last too long though, otherwise that's just annoying.
Is that gold spawning just in specific places in caves? Is it that abundant a lot, because that might make finding items on the ground difficult. Otherwise, very cool
I like the random superunique spawning - it keeps things fresher than cLoD.
Good idea with the spell-generated items being purple. It just helps keep everything easier to see "at-a-glance".
Verrry cool polearm! By the way, I love how you changed weapon speed to be more specific - it was really vague in cLoD.
I like the vengeance overlay!

All this stuff is really great, and will definitely shake up the gameplay a bit. I can already see it'll be a new strategy beating those uniques that are resistant to everything Good work

[Nefarius]

2.) as good as anything that characters can cast is going to be available to monsters and vice versa.

2a). conviction reduces your resistances

6.) there are many things that can trigger this, but mostly you will encounter this on evil-alignment enemies (and higher undead).

7.) the only thing monsters and players can do while stone cursed is dying. You cannot do anything while this state is active, all interaction is cancelled, the sprite isn't animated, its just like monsters being frozen (not chilled) by iceblink (freeze also effects players).
EDIT: The duration of the effect depends on the source, the bosses are capped to at most 5 seconds (IIRC), but there considerably worse "stoners" then random bosses to watch out for . The key here is to use items/spells that offer protection from petrification, while it may not always prevent the effect, if the saving roll fails it at least will considerably reduce the duration.

8.) level themes are a feature from vanilla D2 that is however entirely borked and never worked the way it was intended. (D2 has level themes for randomly spawning rows of barrels, armor/weapon racks and drop items on the battle field [aka you may find weapons/armors just laying on the floor], bad coding makes this never take place. The fixed level themes can randomly tigger, the chance typically will be higher on lower level dungeons. (I.E. if there is a 10-level dungeon, the chance would gradually increase until the 10th level etc).

[DemonicAngel]

7.) the only thing monsters and players can do while stone cursed is dying. You cannot do anything while this state is active, all interaction is cancelled, the sprite isn't animated, its just like monsters being frozen (not chilled) by iceblink (freeze also effects players).

By "all interaction is cancelled" does that mean that you're no longer perceptible to other effects your enemies may give you? Or does that just mean you're stuck there, while your enemies are free to poison, stun, freeze, damage, renew the stone curse, reduce your items durability, etc. ???

[Nefarius]

its just like monsters being frozen (not chilled) by iceblink

The later is the case, with interaction I'm referring to interaction you are trying to do with the environment. Stone Curse works the same way freezes target works in vanilla on monsters, just that it effects the player. [ this ofc means that any defensive spell or defensive item property still takes effect, you just cannot initiate anything on your own ]

[Jakebow]

Does this also mean you'll be making it so the player literally.. gets frozen? That would be troublesome, as you could potentionally shatter into pieces. Would be an interesting effect though.

[kingpin]

Does this also mean you'll be making it so the player literally.. gets frozen? That would be troublesome, as you could potentionally shatter into pieces. Would be an interesting effect though.

I'm pretty sure nef coded it into a way where player wont be shatter into pieces

[Jakebow]

Still. It would be pretty cool to see a player shatter into pieces. Don't you think? Are there any other new status effects being thrown in the engine? Like silenced (Not able to cast spells), forced transmations?

[Nefarius]

Both of those are planned, and some others have already been posted before (like Fear effecting the player, [it makes you lose all control and run around in random directions]).

As for shattering, yep this doesn't happen with freeze/stonecurse. But your corpse will splatter from critical hits , though this can easily be avoided, (protects from critical hits is something that will be very abundant on armors).

[Jakebow]

Awesome.
I'm really looking forward to this more and more. Everyday. So how new NPCs are you adding in total? I'm guessing there won't be voice acting or anything, which is alright anyway. How many new item base item types will there be; and are you using any custom graphics? I'm sure it would be hard to edit the character designs themselves though to show the physical changes.

[Nefarius]

Awesome.
I'm really looking forward to this more and more. Everyday. So how new NPCs are you adding in total? I'm guessing there won't be voice acting or anything, which is alright anyway. How many new item base item types will there be; and are you using any custom graphics? I'm sure it would be hard to edit the character designs themselves though to show the physical changes.

1.) its not really possible to even give an estimate about how many npcs there will be, the current system allows for 32K npcs, so we can pretty much add them whenever and for whatever purpose we need. Also, you can talk to the random townsfolk walking around in the towns, even if they have no meaning to the plot, I don't count these as npcs though.

2.) actually we do plan to have new voice acting for some of the bosses

3.) while the item system is fully planned, we prefer not to reveal a lot about this, as its very deeply tied into other aspects, there will however be, a lot of new equipment to say the least and some former equipment 'lumps' are split into more types each with their own pros and cons (there is a considerable different between heavy and light armor now etc). For weapons, there are many new weapon types, and we aim at the same/around the same count for each type, as to not produce situations like in D2 which has 4 crossbows and 10 types of bows (if you don't count the [strike]copy/pasting[/strike] exceptional and elites).

[Jakebow]

Are you planning to keep the same look of the acts? (Well I know your adding more and what not..) As in the grassy / dark look of ACT 1? Or are you going to make it so there completely different and a new storyline driven?

[AdmiralCrackbar]

I have a suggestion for the npc interactions: How about involving Natalya in Act 3 with something? She's already there, and she doesn't really do much in game anyway, just a stupid easter egg on battle.net.

[kingpin]

I have a suggestion for the npc interactions: How about involving Natalya in Act 3 with something? She's already there, and she doesn't really do much in game anyway, just a stupid easter egg on battle.net.

In unmodded game Natalya was actually a preview off Assassin class

[Nefarius]

Yep, she even got a easteregg speech if you talk to her in a game if the host hasen't killed mephisto yet (but you already have), she talks about act 5.

...

I added a inventory to Natalya making her sell some equipment at present.