Dying in Diablo is something of a tradition. I vividly remember my Diablo I corpse runs and my memory is forever etched with images of Duriel trumping over my dead Ice Sorceress in Diablo II.

So what’s cooking in Blizzard’s lair when it comes to the death mechanic in Diablo 3? Listen to this:

Before I get in to what we are doing let me go over some things we want to avoid with a death mechanic. We want to separate being in town and being out on a quest/adventure/dungeon as much as possible. Leaving the safety of a town should not be a decision you take lightly. We don’t want to remove the sense of suspense and danger by making town something you’re always going back to pretty much whenever you like.

The intent is to create a greater separation from being in town, and not, and to make your time away from town a lot more tense.

On that same note we also don’t want to remove the player from the action. Throwing them back to town for every death really breaks up the action, and not in a fun, interesting, or necessary way.

So, with these things in mind we’ve found that a check point system works really well. Throughout your adventures, and generally at the ends of each “floor” of a dungeon your character is saved to a checkpoint. When you die you’re dropped back at the last checkpoint with a small amount of health, and the rest regenerates slowly. It’s obviously a very forgiving system as it is. It’s just too early to put a ton of thought in to what penalties there should be, if any, added on top of it.

Regardless, potential penalties aside, this is the death mechanic we’re currently using and it’s working really well so far.

OK, so they’ve borrowed the last point saved mechanic from any recent game that I’ve played. Not too original but I’m not complaining too much either.

Now, ever since Activision and Blizzard merged, I had a feeling that moneytalk will take over. Sure enough, listen to Activion’s boss, Bobby Kotick: “Next Blizzard MMO will have a “more broad appeal”…

I can’t believe 10+ million subscribers is now considered marginal for a MMO! For some perspective, LOTRO has about 250,000 and Warhammer online is seeing a decreasing 300,000 or so.

The other point is … how is WoW not appealing enough for everybody? It has purple (gay?) elves, orcs on motorcycles… it’s as cartoony as a Disney picture.

It looks like Activision-Blizzard is definitely pursuing a strategy of attracting the lowest common denominator and putting “niche” products like Diablo 3 on the backburner. Just 40 people are working on Diablo when the support team for WoW alone is something like 3000?

Now, this is the first time I hear about Torchlight, thanks to Shacknews. One look at the screenshot and I could swear it’s very Diablo-esque.

Update: Wildgames have Torchlight for just $6.99 – download it now!

Turns out the team has some Blizzard North veterans like Peter Hu; Erich and Max Schaefer, and some artists. The best piece of news? You don’t have to wait till 2011 to play it. It’ll be on Steam in 5 days!

Blizzard is hard at work figuring out the inventory management. If you compare the screenshots from the initial announcement to the current version, you’ll see plenty of differences.

Yet, they aren’t happy with it. Blizzard states:

Inventory management and the systems that surround it are something we’re obviously interested in, but not something that can really be tuned until we have more of the item game fleshed out and tuned itself. It’s hard to know exactly the best way to handle inventory management when the items, types, pickup frequency, and removal frequency can’t really be measured with any real accuracy.

I hope this doesn’t mean we get to play item tetris – as it was in Diablo 2 with different items taking different number of slots.

At the same time, Blizzard obviously don’t want to copy WoW’s inventory system. Or, Warhammer Online’s system of different bags filtering different item types. They want to make us THINK about which items we put in the inventory.

Remember the big discussion about Diablo 3 getting TOO SUNNY for a Diablo game? The fans had to re-do screenshots in Photoshop just to make their point that a darker Diablo is called for – no green fields.

In public Blizzard remained adamant about the art direction but since then they have let the Art Director go and lo and behold – the updated screenshots look very much LIKE Diablo 2!

Check out the desert screenshot below – I did some minor sharpening in Photoshop but I must say it looks like Act II (Lut Gholein). Mercifully, the green grass has been removed and the characters look dark and desperate!

My worst fears are being confirmed… Diablo 3 is again on the backburner when it comes to its release.

Blizzard have stated that TWO titles will be released in 2010. One of course, is Starcraft 2. Fair enough, it was announced a long time ago.

The other title due in 2010 is WoW Cataclysm. Blizzard needs to keep the money machine printing. I did freeze my account months ago and I suspect I’m not the only one.

Here’s the confirmation from Shacknews: “Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime has confirmed that just-revealed World of Warcraft expansion Cataclysm and StarCraft II are the two titles the company expects to hit in 2010″.

As you’ve probably heard, Blizzcon 2009 is in full swing which means a ton of Diablo news will be pouring in the next two days.

For starters, a new character will be playable at Blizzcon – the Monk! According to pundits, he replaces the Paladin, so for all of you Hammerdin fans, try to find some love for the Monk.

The Monk’s skills are: Crippling Wave, Impenetrable Defense (bubble?), Exploding Palm, Seven-sided Strike, Way of the Hundred Fists. As usual, you can check these in action here.

You can check out gameplay video below:

Stay tuned for more Blizzcon coverage!

Diablo 3 is available for pre-order already! There’s a site that states there are only 55 days to the release. Here’s the screenshot.

To be honest, this looks like a cheap way for this (unnamed) site to get your pre-order. Now, I’m not saying they’ll grab your money and run… but you’ll be looking at a LOOOOOOONG wait, possibly a year.

That’s the reason I’m not going to post a link to the site. Instead, I suggest you head to Cologne, where the Gamescom is taking place in 20 days. You’ll be able to play Diablo 3 there:

We’re pleased to announce that Blizzard Entertainment will be attending gamescom 2009 in Cologne, Germany next month. We look forward to welcoming old friends and new to our booth, which will feature hands-on gameplay with our upcoming games. Our booth is open to the public from Thursday 20 August until Sunday 23 August.

Anyway, Blizzard aren’t going to launch the game without a beta, so make sure you enter your email in the Diablo 3 beta notification list.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the Diablo 3 beta test. However, I’m a fan of Starcraft 2 (except when it steals the spotlight from Diablo), so I’m pretty happy Blizzard announced an upcoming beta test.

You may wonder what that has to do with you. Well, as the Starcraft 2 beta is the first beta to be integrated with the new Battle.net, you’ll probably need to to follow the same steps to get into a Diablo 3 beta.

Here’s the instructions for getting your Battle.net beta settings straight:

1. Sign up for a battle.net account
2. If you have a Battle.net account, login here.
3. You’ll see a link “Beta Profile Settings
4. Download an app that will upload your system specs
5. You’re done

Hopefully, if Blizzard manage to launch Starcraft in 2009, there’s hope that Diablo 3 release date will be in 2010!

With BlizzCon ‘09 coming next month, you don’t have to be a genius to tell that Blizzard will have to make some kind of Diablo 3 announcement.

My count of the rumors regarding the fourth character can be boiled down to two:

• Ranged character – the parallel is to the rogue in the Diablo I and the Amazon in Diablo 2
• Knight – similar to the Warrior in Diablo and the Paladin in Diablo 2

Believe it or not, there’s speculation that the Knight is out of the question for Diablo 3 and that Blizzard would like to introduce a truly unique character, like … a Vampire!

I’m betting my money on the ranged character, could be called Ranger or Hunter. A pet is NOT out of the question, though that could be my WoW Hunter talking!