Crafting Sanctuary : retranscription officielle
En attendant le dossier BlizzCon et la mise en ligne des traits et compétences des cinq classes de Diablo III, je vous propose de découvrir la retranscription officielle de la conférence Crafting Sanctuary. Je vous en ai d'ailleurs proposé par mal de photos très sympas dans cette galerie.
It's early on day two here at BlizzCon, and last night's festivities and battlefield skirmishes have taken their toll on panelists and attendees. But this is not the time for behaving like a mewling kitten. This is the time to prepare for the coming conflict, brave the stench of brimstone, and stare into the maw of the Burning Hells!
In the Diablo III Crafting Sanctuary panel, Game Director Jay Wilson, Lead Content Designer Kevin Martens, Concept Artist Josh Tallman, Sr. Environment Artist Peet Cooper, Sr. Systems Designer Jason Bender, Sr. Technical Artist Jill Harrington, Lead Gameplay Programmer Steve Shimizu, Art Director Christian Lichtner, and Sr. User Interface Artist Michael Nicholson all took the stage to discuss the myriad design disciplines that come together to create a game.
Play, Don't Tell
In constructing Diablo III, a few core storytelling philosophies have become guiding principles for how the game is designed. One of these is the concept of Play, Don't Tell. To illustrate the point, a piece of well-known dialogue was played from the start of Diablo II: the intro conversation with Warriv. The conversation scrolls by, and it takes over a minute to hear him out. Over that time the number of monsters killed and treasure gained equals zero, and the ratio of story told to story played is completely one-sided.
To remedy this, Diablo III takes a more action-oriented approach, which the designed illustrated with a scene from the game. Instead of yet another static conversation with a quest giver, the NPC follows the player shortly after initiating dialogue. The player can kill, pick up loot, and continue with the adventure while the story unfolds. Arriving at the objective, short bits of dialogue impart information about the situation and the monster to be slain, and it's all delivered during the action. Only upon killing the target and completing the quest are players expected to stop and listen to a short, congratulatory audio line and revel for a moment in their victory. In Diablo III, storytelling is interspersed throughout the action to make it more engaging.
Let's take a look at another core storytelling philosophy: the concept of opt-in storytelling. While sometimes there are times when the only thing the game can really do is throw a bunch of text at you, we look for ways make those moments opt-in. If a player is interested in certain elements of the story, you can opt in for more; if not, you can easily pass it by. And whenever possible, we take let players opt in without taking them out of the play experience. Take lore books for example. Lore books can drop from any number of interactive objects or monsters, and when used, a voice will read the book's contents aloud to the player. You can continue playing, killing, and looting while listening to the story.
Dungeons and Details
Moving on from story, a great deal of time is spent concepting dungeons, characters, and items. Even the etermining its look and feel -- is a lengthy and complex process. The outside of a keep wall may use large white stones and dark iron to relay an imposing feeling of strength and rigidity, while the interior may use softer glows from braziers and wooden beams and doorways to create a more inviting feel. The idea of creating a specific feeling through the use of diverse materials and lighting is something that's fully concepted well before any time goes into actually creating a dungeon or location.
Within these locations, the details make the difference. Hundreds or even thousands of individual treasure locations are placed in any given area for the game to randomly spawn only a few interactive treasures. These could come in the form of a rock, a tree stump, or more obviously, a chest. These spawn locations are all hand-placed, and while only a few may appear per game, those details help bring an area to life and add to replayability.
Speaking of replayability, it's important to ensure players experience a wide range of locations and visual variety throughout the game. Diablo III's mini-dungeons were designed with this in mind. These are small dungeons intended to change the scenery, break up the environment, introduce new monsters, and provide the player with bite-sized goals, such as "kill the mini-boss of this mini-dungeon." They also all offer story elements of their own -- there's a reason you're there, and there's a reason you want to kill everything you see.
Events also play a large part in helping to break up the game and to make it feel more organic. Events are hand-crafted scenarios that can appear randomly in selected locations. The example shown in the panel involved a large group of zombies emerging from a swamp to give the player some grief. They provide a random element, create small surmountable challenges, and introduce subtle story elements that relay the vibe of the location without having to place a sign that says, "This Place is Scary." Breakable objects can also play into that, to some degree, by drawing the player into the environment and making it feel more believable. By ensuring just about all objects you'd think would be affected by your skills actually blow up, or shatter, or explode in blood, you're drawn in and can more easily believe that your character is in this world.
The discussion then moved on to the behavior and death of each monster and the rationale behind their design. We discovered early on that monsters are not alive for very long, and so it's necessary to communicate a lot of flavor to the very player quickly while the monsters are still alive and attacking -- and even as they're dying -- and a lot of thought and effort goes into defining how the monster physically moves and attacks. One might think that having each enemy try to kill the player as efficiently as possible makes sense, but in fact it can lead to bad and usually frustrating gameplay. Instead, rules are put in place to keep monsters from following too closely, being too precise or exact, or making a bee-line to the player, which can prevent the use of a variety of tactics.
UI and Dyes
While many feel that Diablo is about killing monsters, we all know you're actually there for the loot. A lot of thought and care is being put into the UI elements to make the itemization more exciting, including unique icons for each piece of gear, for all classes. It's a What You See is What You Get' approach. The item icons will accurately represent what that piece will look like on your character -- a nice touch when scanning through a stash full of loot.
Gear is also going to be exciting throughout the gameplay experience, all the way through to the endgame. In Diablo II, item appearances reset with each individual difficulty (Normal, Nightmare, and Hell) -- in Diablo III, items will continue to look more impressive as you progress through all of the difficulties. If you were to finish the game on Normal, you'd only be seeing a fraction of the armor designs.
The customization doesn't stop with armor looks as the dye system adds a way to set yourself apart from your friends and enemies. Dyes can come from many places in varying rarities. While your friend may wear gear in a common shade of red, you can prance around in the rare and fetching bright crimson red, setting you apart from the pack.
The Artisans' Role
Switching gears, the panel went over the details of the recently revealed artisans, referred to internally as Vendors 2.0. While Diablo II did have some forms of crafting, artisans are far more robust and purposeful system. As item drops in Diablo III are random, players may not get the specific item for the specific slots they need, and that's where the crafters and vendors come in. They can help fill in the gaps and ensure that the random-item game doesn't become too frustrating -- it's no fun to wait forever hoping to upgrade those dingy old boots you've had for the past 10 levels. With artisans you can craft up something that keeps you more or less on-par in item quality for all your gear all slots.
The three artisans are the mystic, jeweler, and blacksmith. The mystic crafts wands, staves, and other magic items. She can also enchant items and identify any you haven't already identified yourself. The blacksmith can craft armor and weaponry, add gem sockets to gear, and repair items. The jeweler crafts rings and amulets, combines gems, and can de-socket gems from items. Combining gems and de-socketing them is important, as it encourages players to use their gems instead of hoarding them.Diablo III has 14 quality levels of gems, and only the first five of which actually drop from monsters. Combining to the highest quality gem will be a significant achievement.
The panel wrapped up, as they tend to do -- and that does it for our Diablo III panel coverage this year. Thanks for reading.
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