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Blizzard CEO comments on Diablo III for consoles

Draft said:
Uh, so what?

They put Diablo and Starcraft on consoles before. They sucked ass. If they put them on consoles again, they'll suck ass again.

Enjoy your terrible, low res, low frame rate, poorly controlled and barely supported console versions, chumps.

The graphics portion I can maybe agree on since it's blizzard we're talking about and visuals are certainly not their forte (though I'd love to see how "well" they'd do with the PS3 hardware heh). Poorly controlled though is, well odd, since especially on PS3 it would boil down to what you would use: Controller, KB/M, Move.
 
Diablo was all over consoles so it would seem logical.

Although i seriously hope they dont mod the PC interface cause they are prepping for consoles. The game seems to have a ton of depth according to the blizzcons.
 
J-Rzez said:
The graphics portion I can maybe agree on since it's blizzard we're talking about and visuals are certainly not their forte (though I'd love to see how "well" they'd do with the PS3 hardware heh). Poorly controlled though is, well odd, since especially on PS3 it would boil down to what you would use: Controller, KB/M, Move.
Why not just take whatever it is you're typing this drivel on and use that to play Diablo. Blizzard games run on toasters.
 
Draft said:
Why not just take whatever it is you're typing this drivel on and use that to play Diablo. Blizzard games run on toasters.

Why any sane human being do that? Some would rather rush out and buy that $399.99+ console, along with that $59.99+ game and accessories instead of just buying a simple sub-$150 video card for their desktops.
 
BloodySinner said:
Why any sane human being do that? Some would rather rush out and buy that $399.99+ console, along with that $59.99+ game and accessories instead of just buying a simple sub-$150 video card for their desktops.

Or maybe some of us don't have desktops but do already have that $299.99 console.
 
BloodySinner said:
Why any sane human being do that? Some would rather rush out and buy that $399.99+ console, along with that $59.99+ game and accessories instead of just buying a simple sub-$150 video card for their desktops.

And play it on their $999.99 couch.
 
Draft said:
Why not just take whatever it is you're typing this drivel on and use that to play Diablo. Blizzard games run on toasters.
I'm typing this on an iPad. Hook a brotha up, Blizzard!
 
J-Rzez said:
The graphics portion I can maybe agree on since it's blizzard we're talking about and visuals are certainly not their forte (though I'd love to see how "well" they'd do with the PS3 hardware heh). Poorly controlled though is, well odd, since especially on PS3 it would boil down to what you would use: Controller, KB/M, Move.


and what console gamer do you know that is going to go out and buy a mouse and keyboard for one game?
 
Tobor said:
I'm typing this on an iPad. Hook a brotha up, Blizzard!
You're an Apple super fan. You probably own $10k in Apple hardware. Just play it on one of your overpriced laptops, or the desktops that can't be upgraded, whatever.
 
evil solrac v3.0 said:
and what console gamer do you know that is going to go out and buy a mouse and keyboard for one game?
That's why no games support it. Console dudebros are never going to use kb/m.
 
Draft said:
You're an Apple super fan. You probably own $10k in Apple hardware. Just play it on one of your overpriced laptops, or the desktops that can't be upgraded, whatever.

Maximum trollin.
 
Draft said:
You're an Apple super fan. You probably own $10k in Apple hardware. Just play it on one of your overpriced laptops, or the desktops that can't be upgraded, whatever.
Haha, i wish. All I have is an aging MacBook with Intel x3100. I can't play shit on that thing. I'd rather they make me a nice console version, but I'll probably get an iMac before it comes out.
 
J-Rzez said:
The graphics portion I can maybe agree on since it's blizzard we're talking about and visuals are certainly not their forte (though I'd love to see how "well" they'd do with the PS3 hardware heh). Poorly controlled though is, well odd, since especially on PS3 it would boil down to what you would use: Controller, KB/M, Move.

Except that if it came out for PS3 it would certainly also be controller compatible. In order to make it controller compatible they would have slow things down in general and change any number of spells that used to rely on precision placement. So even if you played with move or kb/m you'd still be playing a necessarily dumbed down console version.
 
This might be a silly question..

But why would it need battle.net integration? Why couldn't it just be like every other game and use XBL/PSN?
 
Tobor said:
Haha, i wish. All I have is an aging MacBook with Intel x3100. I can't play shit on that thing. I'd rather they make me a nice console version, but I'll probably get an iMac before it comes out.
I think all iMacs have decent midrange video cards for the year of their model so you'll be set.
 
Zzoram said:
I think all iMacs have decent midrange video cards for the year of their model so you'll be set.

Right now that means spending $1200 to play StarCraft 2 on medium/high settings at a non-native resolution at under 60 fps I believe (for sure if you don't run bootcamp), low-end iMac comes with a 4670, might be smarter to just buy a $500 or $600 laptop if you have any use for one, or hope it comes on a console like this thread suggests.
 
Would love to see it happen.

For the PC crowd that is concerned, I doubt there is anything to worry about. First off this is not a complicated game to begin with that would even need to be dumbed down for the console crowd, unless they are adding significant complexity beyond Diablo 2. Blizzard knows who their main audience is, and they are probably going to make the game first and foremost for that crowd. I bet if they do a console version, they will either start working on it after the PC version is finished and potentially released, or it will be just a small side team focused on porting it.

Concerning how it would translate to a controller, it just takes a little imagination. Outside of specific on the fly item and potion management I do not really see anything that would need to be streamlined, and I think from what I have heard about the game they have streamlined that anyway for the PC already. You just map an attack button, and the majority of the other buttons on the controllers would work like hotkeys where you assign spells and skills to them. If you need more you add a radial menu for additional customization. Left stick moves and right stick aims the selected spell almost like a twin stick shooter. If you need to do something more precise, you hold down a trigger/ bumper a cursor comes up and you move it over to your target and fire.

Of course it is not going to be as good of controls as a mouse and keyboard, but it is not nearly as complex or convoluted as trying to map a complex RTS to a controller, and that has been done passably by much less competent people then Blizzard. One thing you could do that I do not believe you could do with Diablo 2 is kite enemies while still firing which could make up for some of the balance issues with the slower less precise input. No more locking your character down to keep them from accidentally rushing into a mob with a faulty click.
 
Minsc said:
Right now that means spending $1200 to play StarCraft 2 on medium/high settings at a non-native resolution at under 60 fps I believe (for sure if you don't run bootcamp), low-end iMac comes with a 4670, might be smarter to just buy a $500 or $600 laptop if you have any use for one, or hope it comes on a console like this thread suggests.
Then wait for the annual refresh to an HD5750.
 
Wait if we are paying the extra $10 a year thanks to Activision, why can't Activision/Blizzard just ask if they can do battle.net on 360?
 
Tobor said:
Haha, i wish. All I have is an aging MacBook with Intel x3100. I can't play shit on that thing. I'd rather they make me a nice console version, but I'll probably get an iMac before it comes out.

dollars to donuts it will play better in the laptop.
 
C4Lukins said:
Would love to see it happen.

For the PC crowd that is concerned, I doubt there is anything to worry about. First off this is not a complicated game to begin with that would even need to be dumbed down for the console crowd, unless they are adding significantly complexity beyond Diablo 2. Blizzard knows who their main audience is, and they are probably going to make the game first and foremost for that crowd. I bet if they do a console version, they will either start working on it after the PC version is finished and potentially released, or it will be just a small side team focused on porting it.

Concerning how it would translate to a controller, it just takes a little imagination. Outside of specific on the fly item and potion management I do not really see anything that would need to be streamlined, and I think from what I have heard about the game they have streamlined that anyway for the PC already. You just map an attack button, and the majority of the other buttons on the controllers would work like hotkeys where you assign spells and skills to them. If you need more you add a radial menu for additional customization. Left stick moves and right stick aims the selected spell almost like a twin stick shooter. If you need to do something more precise, you hold down a trigger/ bumper a cursor comes up and you move it over to your target and fire.

Of course it is not going to be as good of controls as a mouse and keyboard, but it is not nearly as complex or convoluted as trying to map a complex RTS to a controller, and that has been done passably by much less competent people then Blizzard. One thing you could do that I do not believe you could do with Diablo 2 is kite enemies while still firing which could make up for some of the balance issues with the slower less precise input. No more locking your character down to keep them from accidentally rushing into a mob with a faulty click.
It's not a twin stick shooter. A LOT of the spells required precise targeting to be effective. You can't place hydras where you want just by aiming in a direction with the right stick. Similarly you'd have a hard time setting distance for moves like leap and firewall. Maybe they could make you hold a button and push a distance bar out with the RS but it would take way longer than clicking and diablo is a super fast paced game where a seconds delay means death.



Remember, diablo 2 was so fast paced you had to hit monsters faster than they could hit you to not die as a melee character. A moments break in your attack due to sluggish controls and you stop life draining and die. Maybe that's what te health orbs are for, but I think the lifesteal emphasis of melee in diablo 2 was more interesting. It encouraged extreme aggression.
 
Zzoram said:
It's not a twin stick shooter. A LOT of the spells required precise targeting to be effective. You can't place hydras where you want just by aiming in a direction with the right stick. Similarly you'd have a hard time setting distance for moves like leap and firewall. Maybe they could make you hold a button and push a distance bar out with the RS but it would take way longer than clicking and diablo is a super fast paced game where a seconds delay means death.


And again it would not be perfect, but there is a huge audience out there for it and for us console only gamers I think most people would eat it up. This is a franchise that I would bet would sell at least a few million on consoles, and potentially even much higher. Whatever the financial cost of a port would be, I cannot imagine that it is anything but a winning proposition for ActaBlizzion in the end.
 
Zzoram said:
It's not a twin stick shooter. A LOT of the spells required precise targeting to be effective. You can't place hydras where you want just by aiming in a direction with the right stick. Similarly you'd have a hard time setting distance for moves like leap and firewall. Maybe they could make you hold a button and push a distance bar out with the RS but it would take way longer than clicking and diablo is a super fast paced game where a seconds delay means death.


I suppose it's a good thing you're not developing it then.

I have more faith in Blizzard however.

I also have faith in the fact that Activision might very well be applying some pressure to Blizzard.

I also have faith in the fact that putting it on PC and consoles will cause more copies to be sold and I tend to believe Blizzard would like it if more are sold.
 
For the controlls I think the most logical would be to use this setup:

Left analogue: move/look
Right analogue: click in and use for belt. each direction would be it's own slot. (press up for 1, down for 2, etc)
Left trigger: attack
Right trigger: magic
Control pad: inv, stats etc. use right analogue to select and left analogue to move while in different screens.
Face buttons: hotkeys

I never played DiabloII but based off of DiabloI controls this is what I would use.
 
KevinRo said:
For the controlls I think the most logical would be to use this setup:

Left analogue: move/look
Right analogue: click in and use for belt
Left trigger: attack
Right trigger: magic
Control pad: inv, stats etc. use right analogue to select and left analogue to move while in different screens.
Face buttons: hotkeys

I never played DiabloII but based off of DiabloI controls this is what I would use.

Play Sacred 2. They did a pretty good control mapping to consoles, and I'm pretty sure that's what Torchlight is going to template off. It's functional but not as effective as KB/M of course. Diablo 3 will work on consoles, it just won't be as good.
 
Diablo 2 is only as 'deep' as the player wanted it to be. You could do just fine spamming one ability and your normal attack (if melee) over and over again. I'd wager that a majority of the players didn't bind anything and switch between spells. I remember friends playing the sorceress and just spamming frozen orb.

If you take in consideration these players, which are the majority of players, a controller setup would work just fine.
 
Zzoram said:
Play Sacred 2. They did a pretty good control mapping to consoles, and I'm pretty sure that's what Torchlight is going to template off. It's functional but not as effective as KB/M of course. Diablo 3 will work on consoles, it just won't be as good.


Diablo 3 will work on consoles, it just won't play the same as on PC.

You're part of the problem.
 
Kalnos said:
Diablo 2 is only as 'deep' as the player wanted it to be. You could do just fine spamming one ability and your normal attack (if melee) over and over again. I'd wager that a majority of the players didn't bind anything and switch between spells. I remember friends playing the sorceress and just spamming frozen orb.

If you take in consideration these players, which are the majority of players, a controller setup would work just fine.


frozen orb was great until you got to hell.....
 
evil solrac v3.0 said:
frozen orb was great until you got to hell.....

At which point you go online, and spam frozen orb against mobs that aren't immune, while your friends kill the others.
 
Kalnos said:
Diablo 2 is only as 'deep' as the player wanted it to be. You could do just fine spamming one ability and your normal attack (if melee) over and over again. I'd wager that a majority of the players didn't bind anything and switch between spells. I remember friends playing the sorceress and just spamming frozen orb.

If you take in consideration these players, which are the majority of players, a controller setup would work just fine.

Ya it'll be fine. No cross platform play of course, or console players would be brutalized in PvP.
 
evil solrac v3.0 said:
frozen orb was great until you got to hell.....

Maxed with max cold mastery it's not bad even in hell if you have some +all spells or +cold spells gear. Cold mastery maxed would make immunes only resistant.
 
Zzoram said:
Ya it'll be fine. No cross platform play of course, or console players would be brutalized in PvP.

While true, PvP (particularly arena styled) was never the focus of Diablo, and putting a heavy emphasis on it would be dumb.
 
Pai Pai Master said:
Why are people saying graphics aren't Blizzard's strong point? SC2 is one of the most visually appealing games I've played.

Blizzard has an art style, and the people complaining are looking for high tech requirements that will push the limits. Honestly, Blizzard's style is very intelligent, it allows for them to deploy on as many systems as possible while also allowing the game to look good.

The only thing that bothers me about their art style is that everything as of late seems heavily influenced by WoW, but that isn't really a surprise either.
 
evil solrac v3.0 said:
frozen orb was great until you got to hell.....

Frozen orb works fine in hell (you can always just pair it with fireball or nova to get around immunes). It's another spell, though, that requires precise aiming. You have to be able to land the orb so that all the shards pop on the single mob.

Kalnos said:
Diablo 2 is only as 'deep' as the player wanted it to be. You could do just fine spamming one ability and your normal attack (if melee) over and over again. I'd wager that a majority of the players didn't bind anything and switch between spells. I remember friends playing the sorceress and just spamming frozen orb.

If you take in consideration these players, which are the majority of players, a controller setup would work just fine.

That works fine if you're just playing through normal or nightmare. But it's not like gear matters at those levels, either. Diablo 2 only really gets deep once you hit hell and end game gear grinding.
 
Kalnos said:
Diablo 2 is only as 'deep' as the player wanted it to be. You could do just fine spamming one ability and your normal attack (if melee) over and over again. I'd wager that a majority of the players didn't bind anything and switch between spells. I remember friends playing the sorceress and just spamming frozen orb.

If you take in consideration these players, which are the majority of players, a controller setup would work just fine.

Exactly, and you could get through all three difficulties that way with the right build. I never used more then a half dozen hotkeys, minus the belt with the multiple classes I played the game with. I am not talking spamming just one spell or skill either, I was using all six or so of those abilities and I think a controller can handle that on the fly without even a radial menu. I mean there is 18 potential buttons on the 360 and PS3 controller, minus select/start which I would imagine would be used for inventory/ map management. Only 4 or 5 of those I can imagine being used for necessary actions, which leaves 13 potential hotkeys on the controller. In the end it does not sound like anything all that complicated to translate.
 
Boonoo said:
Frozen orb works fine in hell (you can always just pair it with fireball or nova to get around immunes). It's another spell, though, that requires precise aiming. You have to be able to land the orb so that all the shards pop on the single mob.



That works fine if you're just playing through normal or nightmare. But it's not like gear matters at those levels, either. Diablo 2 only really gets deep once you hit hell and end game gear grinding.


And still you are using the same half dozen spells/skills that you have built up over and over again. Because of how the game is built, it does not even allow you to have a dozen effective spells/skills at one time.
 
If I'm remembering correctly, you could use the infinity runeword with a polearm and a merc in act two to reduce mob immunity to resistance, also.

Besides, Diablo 3 will not be nearly as convoluted and complex as Diablo 2 (which wasn't really that complicated) because Blizzard will trying to appeal to as many players of as many different 'skill levels' as possible. The development of the game on consoles would work fine, the real question is would it reduce the games quality vs if it had been an exclusive.
 
C4Lukins said:
Exactly, and you could get through all three difficulties that way with the right build. I never used more then a half dozen hotkeys, minus the belt with the multiple classes I played the game with. I am not talking spamming just one spell or skill either, I was using all six or so of those abilities and I think a controller can handle that on the fly without even a radial menu. I mean there is 18 potential buttons on the 360 and PS3 controller, minus select/start which I would imagine would be used for inventory/ map management. Only 4 or 5 of those I can imagine being used for necessary actions, which leaves 13 potential hotkeys on the controller. In the end it does not sound like anything all that complicated to translate.

Hotkeys are the least important part of Diablo 2, though. Hardly anyone uses more than a couple moves. It's targeting your movement and attacks quickly that isn't really possible on a controller.

The whole point of the game is to get gear so you can do magic find runs quickly to get more gear. You're always building towards faster and faster runs.
 
evil solrac v3.0 said:
and what console gamer do you know that is going to go out and buy a mouse and keyboard for one game?

There would be some, just like some have Move, and of course, there'd still be the controller people. Fact is, the options are there actually. It's scary to think this, but Move may actually work for this. Maybe for Move and KB/M they can do a "hardcore" mode, where it's like the PC mode.

Pai Pai Master said:
Why are people saying graphics aren't Blizzard's strong point? SC2 is one of the most visually appealing games I've played.

Because their games are never bleeding edge. They rely on clever art direction mainly to make their games look acceptable, but they never and never will be used to be a "Cyrsis factor".

Draft said:
Why not just take whatever it is you're typing this drivel on and use that to play Diablo. Blizzard games run on toasters.

You PC master race guys are something else at times. And yes, since it's a Blizzard game, my current, but dated gaming rig I'm typing this on will run it in Ultra most likely just fine, as blizzards games are made to run on as wide of a range of machines as possible. Still would like to see them add a real ultra mode in that pushes hardware. Nice to see you can't dispute what I said though.
 
Boonoo said:
Hotkeys are the least important part of Diablo 2, though. Hardly anyone uses more than a couple moves. It's targeting your movement and attacks quickly that isn't really possible on a controller.

The whole point of the game is to get gear so you can do magic find runs quickly to get more gear. You're always building toward faster and faster runs.


Movement is a weak argument because instead of just clicking away from the monsters or trying to bob and weave through enemies by super fast clicking each step, you can just maneuver your character straight up where they want to go, and potentially fire at your enemies while doing so on a console controller. I agree that targeting your attacks would be slower in the case of picking out a single enemy in the distance, but with the right analogue stick you are going to have quicker results when you are spamming spells then having to click in a particular direction to do so.

And maybe for the most die hard Diablo fans it is about speedrunning the thing, but for those of us who simply enjoy it for what it is and trying different builds and looting for awesome gear, speed is not much of an issue. I can understand how after so many years there is a need to try and find new things to do with the game, but that is not why your average gamer played Diablo in the first place.
 
Combat controls are the least of the issues with porting it to consoles. The only major thing you would have to worry about is area cast spells, which I imagine the easiest way to solve would be to have them cast in the direction you are pointing at a given distance or making certain AoEs cone shaped.

Which is certainly a downgrade in controls, but not all that major.

The real control issue will be inventory management. How do you take a game where you can easily spend 15-20% of your time managing items, enchantments, gems, etc, and implement it on an interface where everything takes at least 3x as long(which is a conservative estimate based on the console RPGs i've played)?

Also how do you manage to show all the stats for all the gear in a way that remains legible from the typically console playing distance without making the tooltips the size of the screen?

Even if the game's combat was unaffected by the port, the game will end up being a boring pile of shit just on interface issues alone.
 
C4Lukins said:
Movement is a weak argument because instead of just clicking away from the monsters or trying to bob and weave through enemies by super fast clicking each step, you can just maneuver your character straight up where they want to go, and potentially fire at your enemies while doing so on a console controller. I agree that targeting your attacks would be slower in the case of picking out a single enemy in the distance, but with the right analogue stick you are going to have quicker results when you are spamming spells then having to click in a particular direction to do so.

I'll admit that my notion of movement might be skewed because I always played a sorc that ended up using teleport for all movement (it was nice; you never let go of right click. Just blind teleport through levels and swap teleport for an attack when necessary.).

And maybe for the most die hard Diablo fans it is about speedrunning the thing, but for those of us who simply enjoy it for what it is and trying different builds and looting for awesome gear, speed is not much of an issue. I can understand how after so many years there is a need to try and find new things to do with the game, but that is not why your average gamer played Diablo in the first place.

It's not so much about speed running as it is about magic finding efficiently. No one wants to spend 15 minutes a run farming runes from countess or doing pit runs.

If we're just talking about the average gamer than the majority of Diablo 2 isn't even necessary. You could get rid of Hell and runes and a good chunk of the gear and most people wouldn't notice. But all of that is why Diablo is what it is.
 
Boonoo said:
I'll admit that my notion of movement might be skewed because I always played a sorc that ended up using teleport for all movement (it was nice; you never let go of right click. Just blind teleport through levels and swap teleport for an attack when necessary.).



It's not so much about speed running as it is about magic finding efficiently. No one wants to spend 15 minutes a run farming runes from countess or doing pit runs.

If we're just talking about the average gamer than the majority of Diablo 2 isn't even necessary. You could get rid of Hell and runes and a good chunk of the gear and most people wouldn't notice. But all of that is why Diablo is what it is.

I think there's a lot of people who maybe played through DII once(or even just looked at screens and think they know how the game plays) who drastically underestimate some of the stuff people do at high level. I dunno how the hell you would control my frenzy barb on a game pad, running through 4 or 5 screens every second. Just too fast.
 
iamblades said:
Combat controls are the least of the issues with porting it to consoles. The only major thing you would have to worry about is area cast spells, which I imagine the easiest way to solve would be to have them cast in the direction you are pointing at a given distance or making certain AoEs cone shaped.

Which is certainly a downgrade in controls, but not all that major.

The real control issue will be inventory management. How do you take a game where you can easily spend 15-20% of your time managing items, enchantments, gems, etc, and implement it on an interface where everything takes at least 3x as long(which is a conservative estimate based on the console RPGs i've played)?

Also how do you manage to show all the stats for all the gear in a way that remains legible from the typically console playing distance without making the tooltips the size of the screen?

Even if the game's combat was unaffected by the port, the game will end up being a boring pile of shit just on interface issues alone.

This is just silly. Larger text answers half of your questions here. The other half can be answered with, yes it would be slower, but it would not destroy the game. The Champions games and the Baldur's Diablo clones prove that navigating a grid of items and moving them around is not a deal breaker. Hell they could probably just write a simple algorithim to make your equipment shuffle automatically into the best possible position. Or maybe this is just a joke post that I have fallen into.
 
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