I don't see a rainbow or unicorn in any of those! Damn them; withholding the good stuff.
Obviously this cannot be Diablo 3, as we were promised* unicorns. Where are our soft fluffy clouds and happy trees? This is an slap in the face to all real Diablo fans.
Next they're going to shoehorn in some grimdark or something, after they finish building a solid Warcraft** foundation for this game.
*said promise may only exist in the mind of the fanbase
**you cannot deny the Templar!
Kidding, maybe.
MrVyngaard on
"now I've got this mental image of caucuses as cafeteria tables in prison, and new congressmen having to beat someone up on inauguration day." - Raiden333
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited May 2011
Just saw the video for followers. I'm not excited for the concept at all. It's like... having someone stand there to just be a turret. I saw some skills being employed but there was nothing immediately indicative of what they do. If it's all just a matter of doing damage, it's a crap system. If the skills are mostly built around their secondary effects though, like slowing, poisoning, lowering resists, etc, then I can be excited for followers. But like I said, all that video showed me was turrets standing in place.
I haven't seen the video, but the description makes me happy. Just having an extra body around to attract attention, do some damage and whatnot could be invaluable considering how much solo time I may end up spending in game. Sure with PA'ers and other friends I expect there to be 2-4 player shenanigans regularly, but knowing that I don't always have to solo is a nice touch.
As we know, it's dangerous to go alone.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Just saw the video for followers. I'm not excited for the concept at all. It's like... having someone stand there to just be a turret. I saw some skills being employed but there was nothing immediately indicative of what they do. If it's all just a matter of doing damage, it's a crap system. If the skills are mostly built around their secondary effects though, like slowing, poisoning, lowering resists, etc, then I can be excited for followers. But like I said, all that video showed me was turrets standing in place.
You should go read the article I linked towards the top of the page.
Just saw the video for followers. I'm not excited for the concept at all. It's like... having someone stand there to just be a turret. I saw some skills being employed but there was nothing immediately indicative of what they do. If it's all just a matter of doing damage, it's a crap system. If the skills are mostly built around their secondary effects though, like slowing, poisoning, lowering resists, etc, then I can be excited for followers. But like I said, all that video showed me was turrets standing in place.
You should go read the article I linked towards the top of the page.
Ah, doing so right now. Also, thanks again for taking over the thread in my stead Skab.
Henroid on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited May 2011
Alright, now I feel better about followers. Them being locked to Single Player is nice, it'll mean not having to concentrate on what they're doing while I can pay attention to whoever else I'm playing with (to better synergize, or whatever). Not that I could do much if I were paying attention to them anyway, since you can't manually heal them. But the health orb thing is great to hear. And them coming-to faster by you standing beside them is so good.
Their four tiers of skills unlock at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20, and their behavior will be modified by the skills you choose.
:!:
This is the most important part for me; skill availability will either make it so you can take any of the followers through the game no matter what class you pick, or you'll be shoe-horned into taking the templar if you're a wizard / witch doctor, etc.
I miss goatmen know what I want back? Diablo 1 baddies. Those lightning slingers from the caves, those fat bile demons things...
So basically every enemy that appears in the cave-levels? Don't forgot those rhino fuckers. Scary as hell when they'd charge in from off-screen. Also, lighting-slinger dudes from my Diablo 1 Lets Play:
They had the raddest death animations, but it's hard to capture in screenshots.
Edit - Uh, here's a text link since Image Shack is fucking goofy sometimes.
Wait! I just noticed the thread title change. Where the "Q3 Beta" announcement? Is this just a soft-target from the conference call or did something solid get announced?!?
Wait! I just noticed the thread title change. Where the "Q3 Beta" announcement? Is this just a soft-target from the conference call or did something solid get announced?!?
Pretty sure it's still just a soft target, but they've said that internal beta testing started like a week or two ago and that things look great so far (which is both good news and rubbing salt in the wound).
I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I'll be striving not to falter in hope until we hit October without a public beta.
Late edit: yeah, to be fair, "tentative Q3 beta" would be more accurate at this point. And with the ever present caveat that it's Blizzard, so even if they said "yup, totally having a Q3 Beta", it'd still be wise to ask "oh yeah, what year?!", Gabe style.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Wait! I just noticed the thread title change. Where the "Q3 Beta" announcement? Is this just a soft-target from the conference call or did something solid get announced?!?
Pretty sure it's still just a soft target, but they've said that internal beta testing started like a week or two ago and that things look great so far (which is both good news and rubbing salt in the wound).
I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I'll be striving not to falter in hope until we hit October without a public beta.
Oh, ok. Skab, you may want to clarify the title. I nearly had a heart attack when I thought concrete dates had been set.
So when's the full game out? I know, I know 'when it's done'. But realistically, to those who follow this game closely and Blizzard in general, what's the best case scenario right now? What seems the likeliest date, even if it's a broad guess?
So when's the full game out? I know, I know 'when it's done'. But realistically, to those who follow this game closely and Blizzard in general, what's the best case scenario right now? What seems the likeliest date, even if it's a broad guess?
They've said they are driving to release this year. Beta is set to start calander Q3 (July - Sept) So depending on when that starts and how long it lasts we're looking at either Q4 this year, or Q1 if things get set back a little.
So when's the full game out? I know, I know 'when it's done'. But realistically, to those who follow this game closely and Blizzard in general, what's the best case scenario right now? What seems the likeliest date, even if it's a broad guess?
They've said they are driving to release this year. Beta is set to start calander Q3 (July - Sept) So depending on when that starts and how long it lasts we're looking at either Q4 this year, or Q1 if things get set back a little.
I'm guessing Q1 2012 is a realistic chance. Q4 '11 seems more like an overly optimistic pipe dream. Possible, sure. But I'd be shocked if it was out that early.
Just saw the video for followers. I'm not excited for the concept at all. It's like... having someone stand there to just be a turret. I saw some skills being employed but there was nothing immediately indicative of what they do. If it's all just a matter of doing damage, it's a crap system. If the skills are mostly built around their secondary effects though, like slowing, poisoning, lowering resists, etc, then I can be excited for followers. But like I said, all that video showed me was turrets standing in place.
You should go read the article I linked towards the top of the page.
Just saw the video for followers. I'm not excited for the concept at all. It's like... having someone stand there to just be a turret. I saw some skills being employed but there was nothing immediately indicative of what they do. If it's all just a matter of doing damage, it's a crap system. If the skills are mostly built around their secondary effects though, like slowing, poisoning, lowering resists, etc, then I can be excited for followers. But like I said, all that video showed me was turrets standing in place.
You should go read the article I linked towards the top of the page.
I can't.
Uncle Guaco is here to help:
As Blizzard did with the male Demon Hunter earlier this year, they seem to be farming out the new Followers information via interviews. There are four interviews (so far) and a massive amount of new info contained in them. Here are bullet points of the core, key new stuff that I culled from all of the interviews.
Scroll down or click through for direct links to all of the interviews with Leonard Boyarsky and Jay Wilson.
All of the Followers have their own unique personalities and stories. Players will learn more about them over the course of the game and find sub-quests to help their followers and learn more about them.
Lyndon, the Scoundrel. From Kingsport, a “thief in mind and heart” who has some of the best comic lines. He uses ranged attacks with bows and crossbows. Jay Wilson compared him to the Rogue from D1.
Kormac the Templar is is powerful melee brawler. He’s a tank and is on a mission to recover holy scrolls that were stolen by Archbishop Lazarus.
Eirena the Enchantress has a past shrouded in mystery. She follows a figure called The Prophet and has excellent crowd control spells, plus a variety of character buffs.
Followers are only available when you’re playing alone, either SP or by yourself MP. If another player joins the game, your Followers will return to town for the duration. You (and the other players) will get your Followers back when you next play solo.
Followers have all their own unique animations and gear looks. They also have full voice recordings and numerous lines of dialogue to go along with their stories.
They are available all throughout the game. You can switch between them at will. A new follower will be appropriate to your level when you first hire them; you don’t have to go back to normal to level up a new one if you hire them in Hell.
Followers do not die; if they run out of hit points they just fall down unconscious for a while, and any bonuses they were granting you vanish for the duration of their nap. You can accelerate their recovery by standing beside them for a few seconds.
Followers can not be manually healed with potions, but they will share in your health globe consumption, just like other players or pets.
They are smarter than the Mercs were in D2, but they’re not going to be mistaken for a human player.
Their four tiers of skills unlock at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20, and their behavior will be modified by the skills you choose.
They can be respeced at any time, for a gold price.
You can not assign the Followers commands or “ready” stances, though Leonard and Jay both say that the skills you choose affect their behavior.
They can not use skill runes.
Followers equip left and right weapons (can use shields), along with 2 rings and an amulet. No other equipment can be equipped, however they each have a special item type; Leonard said the Paladin Templar gets a special tome of some kind. These special items will add buffs or bonuses to the followers and possibly to you as well.
All of the followers have skills that grant them Gold Find or Magic Find, and they can presumably benefit from MF or GF on their equipment as well.
Followers travel with the Caravan, along with the Artisans and various other NPC quest-givers, some of whom occasionally go out into the world as well.
Leonard was not sure if their equipment would lose durability from use, but I’d guess not, ala D2’s convenience on that front.
Interviews so far: Leonard Boyarsky with FZ.se, AusGamers and GamePlanetNZ. Jay Wilson with NowGamer.com and Gamestar.de. Click through for links and quotes to all of them.
The The first interview to go live was on FZ.se, and it featured Leonard Boyarsky talking up the lore and story aspects of the Followers. A quote:
Blizzard Quote:
Leonard Boyarsky: The great thing about them is that they provide all of these options for the player. They all have different abilities that you can choose from; they can wear different kinds of weapons, rings and amulets. In addition, they also have different personalities and we have placed great emphasis on their background stories – they all have full voice-over and we have done lots of work to make them come to life. There’s the Scoundrel, the Templar and the Enchantress, and they all have their distinct personalities.
The Scoundrel is from Kingsport. He’s kind of disgraced and has been kicked out of the thieves’ guild. He’s a real thief in both mind and heart. His name is Lyndon and he acts kind of like the classical DPS character, he’s a guy that does damage from a distance.
The Templar is called Kormac and he’s a bit like the game’s Navy SEAL guy. He’s a member of the Templar order and they’re on this quest – they’re looking for some holy scrolls that were stolen by Archbishop Lazarus in Diablo I. He is good at absorbing damage, so he’s the kind of guy you’d wanna put up front.
Then we have the Enchantress - Eirena – whose past is shrouded in mystery. She follows a mysterious figure called The Prophet and is good at controlling groups of enemies. The player will learn more about her dark past as they progress through the main story.
GamePlanetNZ has done posted some excellent D3 interviews in the past; they did the best of the 4 about the male Demon Hunter a few months ago, and this one is nice work as well. Most of the quick facts at the top of this post came from this interview, so click it for a lot more info on everything.
Blizzard Quote:
Gameplanet: So at what stage of the game do you adopt these followers?
Boyarsky: As you’re running through the main story arc, you’ll encounter them doing similar things to you. They’re adventurers fighting the good fight. You’ll interact with them in their story and then they have reason to follow you and to help you in your quest. These happen in the first third of the game, they’re spread out a little bit. Once you’ve unlocked them you can keep them with you or send them back to town and choose which one you want.
Gameplanet: Gameplanet: Do they each have their own inventory, can you assign them weapons and so on?
Boyarsky: They don’t each have their own inventory as such [but] they have two weapon slots that you can use for a two-handed weapon, dual weapons, or a shield and a weapon. They have two ranged slots, an amulet slot, and they also have a special inventory slot for a special inventory item that is unique to them.
A third interview can be seen on AusGamers, also with Leonard Boyarsky. It’s got good info about the follower’s personalities and background, plus how they’ll interact with the player during the course of the game.
Blizzard Quote:
AusGamers: What was the decision behind only having three followers, because it seems like a small number. Given that you’re utilising them to flesh out the lore more, a higher number might have been helpful. Did you guys have a higher number to begin with?
Leonard: No we were always planning on three. The reason we went with three—at least from a story standpoint—is because we put so much into them. Each one has so much to bring to the game in terms of their personality and story. They’re fully voiced, we put a lot of work into casting, recording and developing them and making sure that they were really polished. So having three in there that not only have different stories but also focus on different aspects of gameplay, felt like a really good number to us.
One of the things with Diablo that you always have to try and balance is that you want to have a good selection of things to choose from but you don’t want to overwhelm the player. You can only use one follower at a time, so if you had too many followers to choose from, it could become overwhelming and you might not want to deal with it.
AusGamers: How do each of their skill-sets compliment the various character classes that you’ve already revealed for the game? And in terms of the AI, do they dynamically react to the way that you’re playing? Obviously it’s not an overtly deep game in terms of combat tactics or recourse, but how have you differentiated their play-styles to work with the different player character classes?
Leonard: Well that’s somewhat up to you by the way you spec them out. If you give the Enchantress a thing called energy bomb—which is one of my favourite things that she does—she’ll cease that when the player gets down to a certain percent of health because it’s this big bomb that goes off. She automatically does that when you get down to a certain amount of health.
If you’ve specced out the Templar to be somebody that does more healing type things—backing you up more than up-front fighting—that’s just how he reacts to the world.
Jay Wilson got into the act as well, speaking with NowGamer.com on Followers.
Blizzard Quote:
Does each character have their own upgrade tree?
The way it works is at specific levels, five, ten, 15 and 20, three skills will unlock and you can choose one of those three skills. They focus a lot on allowing you to make a Follower that suits you. Some players want to really maximise the amount of damage that they do so they can focus on abilities that increase the damage their followers do. Some really prefer the Follower to take more of a support role, they don’t like the notion of the Follower stealing kills from them or stealing some of their glory – in those cases you can make a follower who tends to be more in the background and provides you with buffs or heals or possibly debuff enemies with things like slows and other kinds of debilitating attacks. So based on your own personal play-style you can customise each Follower how you want.
A second Jay Wilson interview can be seen on Gamestar.de, but if there’s an English version of it I can’t find it. The German version is here, and the Google translation into English is fairly readable.
Ordinarily I’d post an enhanced version of the translation, and we’d get some of our German readers to help fix it up, but with 4 other interviews already in English, that seems a lower priority right now. That said, if you can read German, please look it over and let us know if there’s anything new/different than the other interviews offer.
I hate to say this, but the environments look kinda shitty. They've gone with an ultra-low-contrast style and very modest texture resolution that makes the world look blurry and devoid of detail. There are exceptions, like that bridge scene, which looks great and full of detail, but it looks like you'll be mostly running around landscapes in soft-focus.
EggPuppet on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I hate to say this, but the environments look kinda shitty. They've gone with an ultra-low-contrast style and very modest texture resolution that makes the world look blurry and devoid of detail. There are exceptions, like that bridge scene, which looks great and full of detail, but it looks like you'll be mostly running around landscapes in soft-focus.
The screenshots are actually really, really terrible judges for game quality. It looks like wherever they came from had some low graphic settings in place (despite the big resolution).
Really, really, really, not liking the "no followers in multiplayer". The entire game is designed around it and yet you remove a major feature when using it. Also
All of the followers have skills that grant them Gold Find or Magic Find, and they can presumably benefit from MF or GF on their equipment as well.
Does this confirm the existence of magic find? If so...shit.
Rakai on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]XBL: Rakayn | PS3: Rakayn | Steam ID
Really, really, really, not liking the "no followers in multiplayer". The entire game is designed around it and yet you remove a major feature when using it. Also
All of the followers have skills that grant them Gold Find or Magic Find, and they can presumably benefit from MF or GF on their equipment as well.
Does this confirm the existence of magic find? If so...shit.
My guess is that drop rates increase as you have more players, and followers will be a way to buff that rate in single player. As such, followers in multi would be broken, as everyone's dude would grant magic find.
Also, I don't see how the entire game is designed around followers at all. It is designed around multiplayer. Followers are a nice addition for the single player campaign. I wouldn't want them a bunch of them cluttering up the action in multiplayer.
Pookiepoo on
Steam: Pookie GG Now Playing: BattleTech, Divinity Original Sin 2, MechWarrior 5
Just saw the video for followers. I'm not excited for the concept at all. It's like... having someone stand there to just be a turret. I saw some skills being employed but there was nothing immediately indicative of what they do. If it's all just a matter of doing damage, it's a crap system. If the skills are mostly built around their secondary effects though, like slowing, poisoning, lowering resists, etc, then I can be excited for followers. But like I said, all that video showed me was turrets standing in place.
You should go read the article I linked towards the top of the page.
I can't.
Uncle Guaco is here to help:
Thanks, unc!
A few things:
Something that wasn't fully clarified: do followers automatically level up as you level up? They say that when you hire them, they start at your level (or a level appropriate to yours), but they didn't clarify if they will continue to match your level as you level up or if they'll get a normal XP progression like D2 mercs/WoW pets from that point onward.
Something that bothers me: apparently there is some friendly fire with followers? He mentioned the enchantress having a bomb ability that can apparently hurt you as well. Not sure how I feel about that.
I do like that the followers won't be involved with multiplayer games. I really didn't want to feel compelled to deal with them all the time like in D2.
Really, really, really, not liking the "no followers in multiplayer". The entire game is designed around it and yet you remove a major feature when using it.
More like, when not using Multiplayer, something is added to the game to compensate and enrich the SP experience.
Really, really, really, not liking the "no followers in multiplayer". The entire game is designed around it and yet you remove a major feature when using it. Also
All of the followers have skills that grant them Gold Find or Magic Find, and they can presumably benefit from MF or GF on their equipment as well.
Does this confirm the existence of magic find? If so...shit.
My guess is that drop rates increase as you have more players, and followers will be a way to buff that rate in single player. As such, followers in multi would be broken, as everyone's dude would grant magic find.
Also, I don't see how the entire game is designed around followers at all. It is designed around multiplayer. Followers are a nice addition for the single player campaign. I wouldn't want them a bunch of them cluttering up the action in multiplayer.
They could disable MF if that were the case. And "it" refers to multiplayer. They're greatly expanding on the merc functionality, then stripping it from when people spend the most time. The incentive to play singleplayer in D2 was finding items, but now items drop for everyone individually so that is no longer necessary.
And magic find was by far the worst stat ever conceived, and how pervasive it is could kill any interest I have in D3.
Really, really, really, not liking the "no followers in multiplayer". The entire game is designed around it and yet you remove a major feature when using it.
More like, when not using Multiplayer, something is added to the game to compensate and enrich the SP experience.
Except they were in D2 multiplayer, so this is removal of a feature, not adding one.
Rakai on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]XBL: Rakayn | PS3: Rakayn | Steam ID
Except they were in D2 multiplayer, so this is removal of a feature, not adding one.
It's a very different game. Even if they copied the mercenary mechanic entirely from D2, it still wouldn't be the same feature, because everything else about the context in which it functions would be different. You're saying you've been deprived of something that you could never possess in the first place.
Really, really, really, not liking the "no followers in multiplayer". The entire game is designed around it and yet you remove a major feature when using it. Also
All of the followers have skills that grant them Gold Find or Magic Find, and they can presumably benefit from MF or GF on their equipment as well.
Does this confirm the existence of magic find? If so...shit.
My guess is that drop rates increase as you have more players, and followers will be a way to buff that rate in single player. As such, followers in multi would be broken, as everyone's dude would grant magic find.
Also, I don't see how the entire game is designed around followers at all. It is designed around multiplayer. Followers are a nice addition for the single player campaign. I wouldn't want them a bunch of them cluttering up the action in multiplayer.
They could disable MF if that were the case. And "it" refers to multiplayer. They're greatly expanding on the merc functionality, then stripping it from when people spend the most time. The incentive to play singleplayer in D2 was finding items, but now items drop for everyone individually so that is no longer necessary.
And magic find was by far the worst stat ever conceived, and how pervasive it is could kill any interest I have in D3.
Really, really, really, not liking the "no followers in multiplayer". The entire game is designed around it and yet you remove a major feature when using it.
More like, when not using Multiplayer, something is added to the game to compensate and enrich the SP experience.
Except they were in D2 multiplayer, so this is removal of a feature, not adding one.
They've also removed pots. OMG, they're taking away features!
They've also removed pots. OMG, they're taking away features!
That's actually a pretty apt comparison;
They didn't remove pots, they just changed their functionality. Rather than chain chugging them, you have them available on a limited basis.
Mercs aren't gone, they're just not meant to effectively double the size of the team. Instead it means that the game is balanced to a degree to enemies often having 2-4 targets, not just one. No, a merc is never going to truly be a second player, but even just having the backup could/probably will change the game dramatically.
Sure, given the choice between a barely useful turret and another player, I'll take the other player most of the time, but if I have to go alone (and I may often choose to), it'll be nice to know the backup will be available, and will hopefully be even more useful than it was in D2.
As to the person fearing MF; just keep breathing, it'll all be fine. I wasn't a fan of the stat either, but I believe the current word (or it might just be rumour?) is that it may only be available on certain slots like rings and amulets (and is it any coincidence that the only slots mercs supposedly get are weapons and jewelry, if I'm not mistaken?).
Even if that doesn't end up being the case, I hope some of the die hards on both sides of the mechanic get to test out its implementation and influence the final release, which is theoretically like 6-12+ months away. Time remains, Don't Panic, etc.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Posts
I suppose it makes sense, though.
Obviously this cannot be Diablo 3, as we were promised* unicorns. Where are our soft fluffy clouds and happy trees? This is an slap in the face to all real Diablo fans.
Next they're going to shoehorn in some grimdark or something, after they finish building a solid Warcraft** foundation for this game.
*said promise may only exist in the mind of the fanbase
**you cannot deny the Templar!
As we know, it's dangerous to go alone.
You should go read the article I linked towards the top of the page.
Edit: Worst totp ever.
Here: http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/followers-interviews-commence/
Ah, doing so right now. Also, thanks again for taking over the thread in my stead Skab.
:!:
This is the most important part for me; skill availability will either make it so you can take any of the followers through the game no matter what class you pick, or you'll be shoe-horned into taking the templar if you're a wizard / witch doctor, etc.
Also I just realized all those screenshots are of goatmen. Act 1: Goats and Goats and Goats
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
Wonder what they will mutter this time.
e: @lanrutcon - goatmen are in Diablo II, fwiw
That said it looks really good, and I'm excited that they don't look the same from level 1 till level 99!
I can have Nick Cave as a sidekick?
HELL. YEA!
They had the raddest death animations, but it's hard to capture in screenshots.
Edit - Uh, here's a text link since Image Shack is fucking goofy sometimes.
Pretty sure it's still just a soft target, but they've said that internal beta testing started like a week or two ago and that things look great so far (which is both good news and rubbing salt in the wound).
I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I'll be striving not to falter in hope until we hit October without a public beta.
Late edit: yeah, to be fair, "tentative Q3 beta" would be more accurate at this point. And with the ever present caveat that it's Blizzard, so even if they said "yup, totally having a Q3 Beta", it'd still be wise to ask "oh yeah, what year?!", Gabe style.
Oh, ok. Skab, you may want to clarify the title. I nearly had a heart attack when I thought concrete dates had been set.
Yep, sure is.
And ok, fixed the title. Sorry about the maybe false hope :P
They've said they are driving to release this year. Beta is set to start calander Q3 (July - Sept) So depending on when that starts and how long it lasts we're looking at either Q4 this year, or Q1 if things get set back a little.
I'm guessing Q1 2012 is a realistic chance. Q4 '11 seems more like an overly optimistic pipe dream. Possible, sure. But I'd be shocked if it was out that early.
Uncle Guaco is here to help:
Scroll down or click through for direct links to all of the interviews with Leonard Boyarsky and Jay Wilson.
All of the Followers have their own unique personalities and stories. Players will learn more about them over the course of the game and find sub-quests to help their followers and learn more about them.
Lyndon, the Scoundrel. From Kingsport, a “thief in mind and heart” who has some of the best comic lines. He uses ranged attacks with bows and crossbows. Jay Wilson compared him to the Rogue from D1.
Kormac the Templar is is powerful melee brawler. He’s a tank and is on a mission to recover holy scrolls that were stolen by Archbishop Lazarus.
Eirena the Enchantress has a past shrouded in mystery. She follows a figure called The Prophet and has excellent crowd control spells, plus a variety of character buffs.
Followers are only available when you’re playing alone, either SP or by yourself MP. If another player joins the game, your Followers will return to town for the duration. You (and the other players) will get your Followers back when you next play solo.
Followers have all their own unique animations and gear looks. They also have full voice recordings and numerous lines of dialogue to go along with their stories.
They are available all throughout the game. You can switch between them at will. A new follower will be appropriate to your level when you first hire them; you don’t have to go back to normal to level up a new one if you hire them in Hell.
Followers do not die; if they run out of hit points they just fall down unconscious for a while, and any bonuses they were granting you vanish for the duration of their nap. You can accelerate their recovery by standing beside them for a few seconds.
Followers can not be manually healed with potions, but they will share in your health globe consumption, just like other players or pets.
They are smarter than the Mercs were in D2, but they’re not going to be mistaken for a human player.
Their four tiers of skills unlock at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20, and their behavior will be modified by the skills you choose.
They can be respeced at any time, for a gold price.
You can not assign the Followers commands or “ready” stances, though Leonard and Jay both say that the skills you choose affect their behavior.
They can not use skill runes.
Followers equip left and right weapons (can use shields), along with 2 rings and an amulet. No other equipment can be equipped, however they each have a special item type; Leonard said the Paladin Templar gets a special tome of some kind. These special items will add buffs or bonuses to the followers and possibly to you as well.
All of the followers have skills that grant them Gold Find or Magic Find, and they can presumably benefit from MF or GF on their equipment as well.
Followers travel with the Caravan, along with the Artisans and various other NPC quest-givers, some of whom occasionally go out into the world as well.
Leonard was not sure if their equipment would lose durability from use, but I’d guess not, ala D2’s convenience on that front.
Interviews so far: Leonard Boyarsky with FZ.se, AusGamers and GamePlanetNZ. Jay Wilson with NowGamer.com and Gamestar.de. Click through for links and quotes to all of them.
The The first interview to go live was on FZ.se, and it featured Leonard Boyarsky talking up the lore and story aspects of the Followers. A quote:
Blizzard Quote:
Leonard Boyarsky: The great thing about them is that they provide all of these options for the player. They all have different abilities that you can choose from; they can wear different kinds of weapons, rings and amulets. In addition, they also have different personalities and we have placed great emphasis on their background stories – they all have full voice-over and we have done lots of work to make them come to life. There’s the Scoundrel, the Templar and the Enchantress, and they all have their distinct personalities.
The Scoundrel is from Kingsport. He’s kind of disgraced and has been kicked out of the thieves’ guild. He’s a real thief in both mind and heart. His name is Lyndon and he acts kind of like the classical DPS character, he’s a guy that does damage from a distance.
The Templar is called Kormac and he’s a bit like the game’s Navy SEAL guy. He’s a member of the Templar order and they’re on this quest – they’re looking for some holy scrolls that were stolen by Archbishop Lazarus in Diablo I. He is good at absorbing damage, so he’s the kind of guy you’d wanna put up front.
Then we have the Enchantress - Eirena – whose past is shrouded in mystery. She follows a mysterious figure called The Prophet and is good at controlling groups of enemies. The player will learn more about her dark past as they progress through the main story.
GamePlanetNZ has done posted some excellent D3 interviews in the past; they did the best of the 4 about the male Demon Hunter a few months ago, and this one is nice work as well. Most of the quick facts at the top of this post came from this interview, so click it for a lot more info on everything.
Blizzard Quote:
Gameplanet: So at what stage of the game do you adopt these followers?
Boyarsky: As you’re running through the main story arc, you’ll encounter them doing similar things to you. They’re adventurers fighting the good fight. You’ll interact with them in their story and then they have reason to follow you and to help you in your quest. These happen in the first third of the game, they’re spread out a little bit. Once you’ve unlocked them you can keep them with you or send them back to town and choose which one you want.
Gameplanet: Gameplanet: Do they each have their own inventory, can you assign them weapons and so on?
Boyarsky: They don’t each have their own inventory as such [but] they have two weapon slots that you can use for a two-handed weapon, dual weapons, or a shield and a weapon. They have two ranged slots, an amulet slot, and they also have a special inventory slot for a special inventory item that is unique to them.
A third interview can be seen on AusGamers, also with Leonard Boyarsky. It’s got good info about the follower’s personalities and background, plus how they’ll interact with the player during the course of the game.
Blizzard Quote:
AusGamers: What was the decision behind only having three followers, because it seems like a small number. Given that you’re utilising them to flesh out the lore more, a higher number might have been helpful. Did you guys have a higher number to begin with?
Leonard: No we were always planning on three. The reason we went with three—at least from a story standpoint—is because we put so much into them. Each one has so much to bring to the game in terms of their personality and story. They’re fully voiced, we put a lot of work into casting, recording and developing them and making sure that they were really polished. So having three in there that not only have different stories but also focus on different aspects of gameplay, felt like a really good number to us.
One of the things with Diablo that you always have to try and balance is that you want to have a good selection of things to choose from but you don’t want to overwhelm the player. You can only use one follower at a time, so if you had too many followers to choose from, it could become overwhelming and you might not want to deal with it.
AusGamers: How do each of their skill-sets compliment the various character classes that you’ve already revealed for the game? And in terms of the AI, do they dynamically react to the way that you’re playing? Obviously it’s not an overtly deep game in terms of combat tactics or recourse, but how have you differentiated their play-styles to work with the different player character classes?
Leonard: Well that’s somewhat up to you by the way you spec them out. If you give the Enchantress a thing called energy bomb—which is one of my favourite things that she does—she’ll cease that when the player gets down to a certain percent of health because it’s this big bomb that goes off. She automatically does that when you get down to a certain amount of health.
If you’ve specced out the Templar to be somebody that does more healing type things—backing you up more than up-front fighting—that’s just how he reacts to the world.
Jay Wilson got into the act as well, speaking with NowGamer.com on Followers.
Blizzard Quote:
Does each character have their own upgrade tree?
The way it works is at specific levels, five, ten, 15 and 20, three skills will unlock and you can choose one of those three skills. They focus a lot on allowing you to make a Follower that suits you. Some players want to really maximise the amount of damage that they do so they can focus on abilities that increase the damage their followers do. Some really prefer the Follower to take more of a support role, they don’t like the notion of the Follower stealing kills from them or stealing some of their glory – in those cases you can make a follower who tends to be more in the background and provides you with buffs or heals or possibly debuff enemies with things like slows and other kinds of debilitating attacks. So based on your own personal play-style you can customise each Follower how you want.
A second Jay Wilson interview can be seen on Gamestar.de, but if there’s an English version of it I can’t find it. The German version is here, and the Google translation into English is fairly readable.
Ordinarily I’d post an enhanced version of the translation, and we’d get some of our German readers to help fix it up, but with 4 other interviews already in English, that seems a lower priority right now. That said, if you can read German, please look it over and let us know if there’s anything new/different than the other interviews offer.
The screenshots are actually really, really terrible judges for game quality. It looks like wherever they came from had some low graphic settings in place (despite the big resolution).
Does this confirm the existence of magic find? If so...shit.
My guess is that drop rates increase as you have more players, and followers will be a way to buff that rate in single player. As such, followers in multi would be broken, as everyone's dude would grant magic find.
Also, I don't see how the entire game is designed around followers at all. It is designed around multiplayer. Followers are a nice addition for the single player campaign. I wouldn't want them a bunch of them cluttering up the action in multiplayer.
A few things:
Something that wasn't fully clarified: do followers automatically level up as you level up? They say that when you hire them, they start at your level (or a level appropriate to yours), but they didn't clarify if they will continue to match your level as you level up or if they'll get a normal XP progression like D2 mercs/WoW pets from that point onward.
Something that bothers me: apparently there is some friendly fire with followers? He mentioned the enchantress having a bomb ability that can apparently hurt you as well. Not sure how I feel about that.
I do like that the followers won't be involved with multiplayer games. I really didn't want to feel compelled to deal with them all the time like in D2.
More like, when not using Multiplayer, something is added to the game to compensate and enrich the SP experience.
They could disable MF if that were the case. And "it" refers to multiplayer. They're greatly expanding on the merc functionality, then stripping it from when people spend the most time. The incentive to play singleplayer in D2 was finding items, but now items drop for everyone individually so that is no longer necessary.
And magic find was by far the worst stat ever conceived, and how pervasive it is could kill any interest I have in D3.
Except they were in D2 multiplayer, so this is removal of a feature, not adding one.
It's a very different game. Even if they copied the mercenary mechanic entirely from D2, it still wouldn't be the same feature, because everything else about the context in which it functions would be different. You're saying you've been deprived of something that you could never possess in the first place.
They've also removed pots. OMG, they're taking away features!
Either have it in multiplayer or not at all.
Oh, you can have them while playing by yourself in multiplayer......
Haha, jesus.
That's actually a pretty apt comparison;
They didn't remove pots, they just changed their functionality. Rather than chain chugging them, you have them available on a limited basis.
Mercs aren't gone, they're just not meant to effectively double the size of the team. Instead it means that the game is balanced to a degree to enemies often having 2-4 targets, not just one. No, a merc is never going to truly be a second player, but even just having the backup could/probably will change the game dramatically.
Sure, given the choice between a barely useful turret and another player, I'll take the other player most of the time, but if I have to go alone (and I may often choose to), it'll be nice to know the backup will be available, and will hopefully be even more useful than it was in D2.
As to the person fearing MF; just keep breathing, it'll all be fine. I wasn't a fan of the stat either, but I believe the current word (or it might just be rumour?) is that it may only be available on certain slots like rings and amulets (and is it any coincidence that the only slots mercs supposedly get are weapons and jewelry, if I'm not mistaken?).
Even if that doesn't end up being the case, I hope some of the die hards on both sides of the mechanic get to test out its implementation and influence the final release, which is theoretically like 6-12+ months away. Time remains, Don't Panic, etc.