Wizard Class Revealed For Diablo III

[robwright]

Article by Rob Wright

BlizzCon 2008 is officially underway, and the big news of the day is the introduction of a third playable class for Diablo III: the Wizard.

http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2008/10/10/blizzcon08_diablo3wizard/

 

[aevm]

No big surprise there. It was pretty obvious they'd have a wizard class in D3. The sorceress class in D2 was the most fun of all 7 classes, especially in single-player mode.
But many thanks for confirming it

I'm sure the amazons will be back too.

 

[lonewarder]

Guys,
What's the release date on D3, anyway/ Still shrouded in mystery?

 

[robwright]

Guys,
What's the release date on D3, anyway/ Still shrouded in mystery?

No release date yet. Blizzard didn't announce anything here at the show. But this build of Diablo III is super-polished, bug free and runs perfect. And as Travis deftly stated, Diablo III looks more ready now than Hellgate: London when it launched. So take that for what it's worth.

BTW, I'm not a big Diablo guy, but I'm loving Diablo III.

 

[quantumsheep]

I'm getting really excited for D3, it's looking fanfrickintastic so far! Unlike what seems to be most of the population i like the new "look", i think it looks great.

 

[aevm]

I think it looks great too.

Will it work decently on my Q6600/8800GTX?

 

[robwright]

I think it looks great too.

Will it work decently on my Q6600/8800GTX?

I'm willing to bet money that Diablo III will run fine on those specs. Blizzard would not say a word about hardware requirements for the game at the show -- in fact, they wouldn't even tell us what kind of hardware was running the demos. But we did find out that they Intel Dual Core systems with a single Nvidia card (not sure which type, couldn't see through the case window) and two GB of Corsair RAM. And all of the demos ran perfectly, with no frame rate drops, texture pops, or any issues whatsoever.

BTW, it was a great show, and I'm pretty much hooked on Diablo III now...

 

[Guest]

I think it looks great too.

Will it work decently on my Q6600/8800GTX?

If you didnt notice, blizzard make games optimized for maximum compatibility with wide range of system. I bet 8800GTX will be overkill, and single core pc will be suffiecient

 

[Transsive]

The wizard is everything I dreamed of

Hot asian why uber arcane power.

 

[robwright]

The wizard is everything I dreamed of

Hot asian why uber arcane power.

The Wizard class is indeed awesome (looks aside), especially with the Disintigration Attack and Time Warp abilities. But the fan favorite on the show floor and in the press room seemed to be the Witch Doctor, which has some colorful abilities. The Fire Bombs and Locust Swarms are sweet, and the Frog Spell is just great. Loved the Witch Doctor.

 

[Alex The PC Gamer]

The Wizard class is indeed awesome (looks aside), especially with the Disintigration Attack and Time Warp abilities. But the fan favorite on the show floor and in the press room seemed to be the Witch Doctor, which has some colorful abilities. The Fire Bombs and Locust Swarms are sweet, and the Frog Spell is just great. Loved the Witch Doctor.

Well, in D2, I was a HUGE fan of the Necromancer. The witch doctor seems to be the closest to what you got as a necromancer. I just hope we can summon a huge army once again...with the Witch Doctor, or others.

Also, this might sound like a far shot but I'm willing to bet there will be a Druid character. The only reference I have is from a video I saw which showed some artwork for D3...and there is was, a sketch of a Druid Class. Hhhmmmmm...

 

[Alex The PC Gamer]

The Wizard class is indeed awesome (looks aside), especially with the Disintigration Attack and Time Warp abilities. But the fan favorite on the show floor and in the press room seemed to be the Witch Doctor, which has some colorful abilities. The Fire Bombs and Locust Swarms are sweet, and the Frog Spell is just great. Loved the Witch Doctor.

Sorry, didn`t mean to double post. Browser error.

 

[stemnin]

Well, in D2, I was a HUGE fan of the Necromancer. The witch doctor seems to be the closest to what you got as a necromancer. I just hope we can summon a huge army once again...with the Witch Doctor, or others.

Also, this might sound like a far shot but I'm willing to bet there will be a Druid character. The only reference I have is from a video I saw which showed some artwork for D3...and there is was, a sketch of a Druid Class. Hhhmmmmm...

It wouldn't surprise me, druids and barbs are just cousins that took to defending Arreat is different ways. I hope it makes a comeback. (they have said that future expansions could see a return of previous classes also)

Wizard looks bad ass.

Blizzard is such a tease.

 

[aevm]

I wish they'd sell D3 with the wizard, witch doctor and barbarian in Dec 2009, and then add 3 more classes in Dec 2010 and 3 more in Dec 2011. Wouldn't that be nice? Even if they charge $50 each time, I'd buy it without any complaints.

 

[robwright]

I wish they'd sell D3 with the wizard, witch doctor and barbarian in Dec 2009, and then add 3 more classes in Dec 2010 and 3 more in Dec 2011. Wouldn't that be nice? Even if they charge $50 each time, I'd buy it without any complaints.

I can't tell if Aevm is serious and is obssessed with Diablo 3 or if he/she is making a not-so-subtle jab ta Blizzard for splitting StarCraft II into three different games.

In any event, we spoke with Jay Wilson, D3's lead designer, at Blizzcon and he said they considered upping the number of playable classes for the first game beyond five, but they decided to save some of those potential new classes for future expansion packs. The interview with Wilson will be online in the future...

 

[SnareSpectre]

Yeah Diablo 3 is easily, EASILY a day-one buy for me. It made me go back and try Diablo 2, which I'm now very much into. Your Q6600/8800GTX is probably twice the power needed to run Diablo 3 at max settings on a high resolution - that's a nice computer, and Blizzard's games always seem to be about 2-3 years behind in the technical graphics department, yet untouchable where artistic design is concerned!

 

[aevm]

I didn't know about the Starcraft splitting when I posted that. I just read about it recently. I was serious. I spent about $120 on D2 and its expansion, and got between 2000 and 3000 hours of entertainment. Not a bad deal at all. Compare that with Hellgate, $70 and all I really got was the comic book (I bought the expensive Collector's Edition, you know...)

@SnareSpectre:
Here's something you may want to consider. Diablo 2 has free downloadable mods. You install one of those and you get a totally different game. For example the one I use now is called "Valhalla". It has a cave full of Diablos, a stash that can be shared between characters (or used to duplicate stuff if you don't mind cheating a bit), new recipes, huge inventory, etc. You can keep adding attributes to certain items until they become ridiculously powerful - just collect enough stones or horns or whatever. Another mod I enjoyed a lot was "Ancestral Recall".

Edit: of course, it's totally worth playing the game as it is with all 7 classes before messing around with mods. OK, paladin in single-player game is not really worth it IMO, but try it anyway.