The most interesting thing to experiment with on a new Barbarian was his Fury resource system. Fury replaces mana for the Barbarian (the Monk and Wizard will also have alternate mana-like resources, but these were not yet implemented) and it works something like the Warrior class's Rage, in World of Warcraft. As the Barbarian deals damage, his Fury meter fills up, enabling him to use his special attacks, which expend various amounts of Fury when they are used. Fury is meant to limit the Barbarian's ability to constantly use his most powerful attacks, but the developers want players to have fun and the Barbarian to be awesome. So they're constantly tweaking the Fury refill rate and the spell costs. The idea is to let players use Fury non-stop in big battles, providing it's being used wisely. Any special attack that hits multiple enemies, or does big damage to a single enemy, will usually restore enough Fury to pay for itself. Some attacks, such as the swiping, multi-hitting Cleave, could quickly fill more Fury than they cost to use. Higher level skills will presumably be even more damaging, leading to a faster Fury refill. There are also passive skills that increase Fury gain and/or reduce the rate at which is seeps away between fights.

In effect, the Fury refilling system encourages the Barbarian to find large mobs of monsters and powerful single targets (like bosses), since he can go all out on those, while weak individual monsters will cost him more Fury to kill than they're worth in return. While playing, I found myself regularly running off and leaving the last survivor or two in large battles, always hungry for another big mob upon which to expend my Fury. I just needed some lesser, girlie-man character in my party to pick off the stragglers for me.


Locations and Monsters

The action in this year's BlizzCon demo took place entirely in a new, outdoor, desert-like area that was (intentionally, on the part of the devs) reminiscent of Act 2 of Diablo 2. There were narrow rocky passes, wide-open sandy areas studded with small settlements of crumbling houses, open pit desert mining operations with narrow wooden platforms, and one fairly large, entirely demon-infested city.

The enemies encountered in the desert, and a few dungeons beneath the surface, were all new too, or at least never before seen in Diablo 2. Much to the delight of most players, the Fallen were back. These famously cowardly Imps have always been fan favorites, and played prominent roles in Diablo and Diablo 2, but hadn't previously been seen in Diablo 3 other than in some concept art. Joining the Fallen were a wide variety of new monsters, including the "Dark Cultists," crazed human conjurers who are as weak as they are aggressive, but who have a chance to transform into ravening, mutated "Defiled Vessels." Numerous demonic mages, animated skeletons, and others filled roster, with the huge, Whirlwind-using Dune Dervishes about the most memorable.

The Dervishes even featured in the Character Panel, when the design team talked about how the Dervish's Whirlwind attack looked so cool that they had to go back and spruce up the Barbarian's Whirlwind, so he wouldn't be outdone by a monster in the use of his own archetypal skill.


Conclusion

The overall impression of Diablo 3, this year even more than last, is of a game that follows closely in Diablo 2's footsteps, while adding substantial improvements to the graphics, sound effects, and other technological areas. The characters are unique, iconic, instantly recognisable, and immediately fun to play. The monsters are interesting, numerous, and blessed with delightful death animations. The controls are simplified (from Diablo 2) and easy to use, but entirely sufficient for the task. The game menus and functions; the skill tree, inventory window, quests, and other game options are also improved over their predecessors, even at this fairly early point in development

On the whole, the game seems certain to appeal to fans of any ARPG, and is immediately addictive. It's impossible at this point to judge whether the end game balance and the genius of Diablo 2's item hunting/slot machine approach will hold up long term, but from what I've seen of Diablo 3 at the past two BlizzCons, the team is well on their way to crafting another stunning RPG hit.

The only bad D3 news from BlizzCon concerned the release date. Blizzard revealed that their planned two games for 2010 are Stacraft 2 and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, which means D3 is not going to arrive until 2011, at the soonest. At least that gives us something to anticipate at next year's BlizzCon!

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