Joystiq

Diablo 3's missing runestones found at GDC

Mike Schramm — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 15:00:00 EST

If you've followed Diablo 3's development for a long time, you might remember the idea of Runestones. They were meant to be actual in-game items that could supplement character abilities in various ways, such as adding a fire attack to a melee hit, or doubling the power of a spell for free. When the game arrived last year, the Runestone system was nowhere to be seen, replaced by the controversial Skill Rune system. So where did those Runestones go? Diablo 3's technical designer Wyatt Cheng said during a talk at GDC that they're still around, in one form or another.

The Runestone system was originally created to add flexibility to character skills, and to give players a chance to experiment and play around with new abilities after they had gained them through leveling up. The original idea had ten different effects that could be added to various abilities, including striking, lethality, efficiency, life-stealing, poison, slowing and so on. But ten was too many, Blizzard decided, and they opted to boil them down into five different stone types (Crimson, Obsidian, Indigo, Golden and Alabaster) that would each affect skills in a few different ways.

Cheng said having actual stones in the inventory worked in a few different ways. It gave the system a sense of discovery, as players enjoyed seeing which stones granted certain effects, and it accomplished the original goal of allowing players to experiment with customization. Managing the stones in the game's inventory was a "nightmare," according to Cheng, and player expectations didn't always match what the stones actually provided.

In the end, the team went with the existing Skill Rune system, which allowed Blizzard to give specific skill and stone combinations more "flavorful names," and let the team make sure that the added effects were appropriate for the skills they matched. But Cheng said the effects were still in there: Some runes still slow opponents or add more damage to attacks, and those were the effects originally conferred by the stones of Indigo and Crimson.

Diablo 3's missing runestones found at GDC originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 30 Mar 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Diablo 3 being polished up, no release date yet

Mike Schramm — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:16:00 EST

The build of Diablo 3 being shown at BlizzCon 2011 last week did have a few polish updates, but generally it was the same content previously available in the beta, which we've covered thoroughly so far. Diablo 3's Technical Director Wyatt Chang agreed while chatting with me last week that the game is basically content complete, but the polish phase is far from over. "Content complete for us usually means things like voice recording, art, assets are in place, but it doesn't mean that things like the tuning, balance, and game systems are in place."

The team is still working hard on some of the core concepts, however -- one issue that's come up lately is whether players can switch skills on the fly or not. In the beta, says Cheng, "you can play with your skill window open, and you can switch skills in the middle of the fight, which has some upsides and it's very cool in one regard, but on the whole, I think it's sort of a more negative experience, and a lot of people in the community have agreed." Just recently, the team was dealing with things like "how many Pages of Training you can have in one stack," so they are starting to dive into the nitty gritty of how the game will work.

Gallery: Diablo 3 (10/21/11)

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Diablo 3 being polished up, no release date yet originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You won't find the 'Feminist Wh*re' skill in the final version of Dead Island

Ben Gilbert — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:13:00 EST

When Dead Island arrived on Steam in North America, it wasn't exactly what the game's developer and publisher intended on releasing. Rather, it was a pre-release dev build, meaning many folks encountered bugs or were unable to play the game altogether. Moreover, some PC users have been able to do rather ... interesting things with the early build, and one even spotted a somewhat disturbing skill name that didn't end up in the final game: "Feminist Wh*re".

One of Dead Island's playable characters, Purna, was apparently allotted a skill at one point that was dubbed "Feminist Whore", though it only shows up in the source code (in the "default_player_setup" file). It's possible that the skill eventually ended up as "Gender Wars," though that's just us taking an educated guess.

Publisher Deep Silver, issued this response: "These unfortunate actions were of one individual at developer company Techland and do not in any way represent the views of publishing company Deep Silver." Further, developer Techland stated: "It obviously violates professional and ethical standards at Techland and should never have happened. We're investigating this right now and we'll issue a statement later. For now, I can only express my sincerest apologies for this incident and assure you that whoever acted so irresponsibly did not represent the views and opinions of Techland. I'm equally sure that aside from the author of that unfortunate line of code, everyone at the office is as disturbed by this as you are."

[Thanks, Spencer.]

You won't find the 'Feminist Wh*re' skill in the final version of Dead Island originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Diablo 3 beta preview: Polish and punch

Mike Schramm — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 03:01:00 EST

While all the Diablo 3 talk this week will probably center around Blizzard's announcement of the player-to-player auction system, there's plenty to say about the game itself. It's the most polished it has ever been, and while the mechanics were in and working at the last BlizzCon, this beta build featured all of the classes with both sexes, the early questlines and story in the beginning of Act 1, co-op play, and the latest implementation of the full skill and crafting systems. We didn't get to play with the skill-tweaking Runes, but we were shown them being slotted and used in a hands-off demo.

Regardless of how you feel about real-money transactions and third-party payment providers, Diablo 3 is still turning out to be one hell of a videogame.

Gallery: Diablo 3 beta (8/1/2011)

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Diablo 3 beta preview: Polish and punch originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 01 Aug 2011 03:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Secret World's progression system doesn't subscribe to labels, man

Griffin McElroy — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 12:00:00 EST

Though most other MMOs allow their players to use level ranking and class like some kind of shorthand calling card ("Oh, me? I'm a Lv. 43 Powermime!"), Funcom's The Secret World will ditch that system for a more versatile approach, according to a recent Rock, Paper, Shotgun preview. Instead of levels and classes, players will be able to pick and choose from 500 skills that they'll be able to swap between at certain points during a mission, making strategy and foresight far more powerful tools than patience and grinding.

Players will be able to specialize as one of the MMORPG genre's many archetypes, though this broad system won't lock them out of other job types should their interests shift. We appreciate any MMO that allows us to reenact our collegiate career, during which we double-majored in Animal Husbandry and Astronomy with a minor in Healthcare Management and another minor in Racquetball.

The Secret World's progression system doesn't subscribe to labels, man originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 12 Jul 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Philosony: Gamers - natural born learners

Kylie Prymus — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Rants

Bear with me as I'm about to list all of the games I played for the first time in the past two weeks: Team Fortress 2, Puzzle Quest, Silent Hill: Homecoming, Linger in Shadows, Lego Batman, Warhawk, Supersonic Acrobatic Overly Superlative Adjective Cars, and Motor Storm: Pacific Rift. The last four of these are demos, but as inconstant readers of this column may remember I have a bit of a "thing" when it comes to demos, so I spent a fair bit of time with them. This list only includes PS3 and PSP games - there have also been a good half dozen little browser-based games vying for my attention.

Why am I spilling out the sordid details of games I recently deflowered myself on to you? Because in learning how to play all of these games I made an interesting if obscenely obvious discovery - I learned how to play no less than 12 games in a mere 14 days! While that may not sound strange for an avid gamer it sounds odd put in other contexts: learning to play 12 musical instruments in two weeks, learning 12 new sports, learning the ins and outs of a baker's dozen worth of operating systems. Such feats are certainly doable, but rarely does anyone have the drive to add that many new wrinkles to their brain. What is it about games that makes us so willing to learn entirely new systems of play on a regular basis?

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Philosony: Gamers - natural born learners originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 26 Oct 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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