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Blizzard Seeking Console Devs For 'Diablo-Related Concept' 58

Posted by Soulskill from the strict-inevitabilities dept.
Eurogamer reports that a number of Blizzard job listings went up today for top-level console developers. The listings were posted under the Diablo 3 heading, leading to speculation about a console port of the upcoming game. A Blizzard representative soon responded, saying, "... we’re currently exploring a Diablo-related concept for consoles. As we’ve said in the past, with proper care the gameplay could suit the console platform, and we’re interested in seeing what talent out there might be interested in contributing to such a project. To further reiterate what’s posted on the home page: this is not an announcement of a console title. We are first and foremost developing Diablo III for Windows and Mac PCs, and we have no intention of allowing a console interpretation to delay or otherwise affect the release of the game." Having played Diablo 3 at Blizzcon, I can say that the game would very easily make the transition to consoles. An Xbox 360 or PS3 controller would almost perfectly fit all necessary gameplay functions. That said, they could just as easily be porting one of the older games, building a new mini-game to get their feet wet, or getting started on Diablo 4. Time will tell.
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Blizzard Seeking Console Devs For 'Diablo-Related Concept' More

Blizzard Seeking Console Devs For 'Diablo-Related Concept'

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  • The Baldur's Gate franchise was turned into a hack & slash when ported to console, but Diablo games are already hack & slash games. What will Blizzard do? Develop a meta hack & slash?
    • Ported is kind of the wrong term. The dark alliance games had nothing to do with the PC series by the same name. They both just took place in the same Pen-And-Paper setting. Believe it or not, there was a Neverwinter Nights game that had nothing to do with the more recent ones made in the 80s. As long as you acknowledge that Dark Alliance had nothing to do with Baldur's Gate besides being in the city of Baldur's Gate, it was an ok-ish game.
      • Pedantry can never hurt. ;)

        Anyhow, you're right: "to port" isn't the right verb here. What I meant to say was that they took a label that meant something for some of us and slapped it on console games that has barely anything to do with their computer counterparts.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by OpenGLFan ( 56206 )

      The Baldur's Gate franchise was turned into a hack & slash when ported to console, but Diablo games are already hack & slash games. What will Blizzard do? Develop a meta hack & slash?

      Fill a market niche. I loved those games. They weren't anything like the PC Baldur's Gate series, but they were full-screen (no split-screen) couch co-op fun for me and my roommates in college. There's nothing like that anymore; all the current generation games are splitscreen co-op or network co-op only.

      If I could play Diablo with fullscreen co-op, I'd buy it on launch day.

    • Probably a Diablo RPG, with the various warriors, wizards, and rangers replaced with androgynous, spike haired teenagers wielding 10 foot long swords. In all seriousness though, Blizzard would be smart to stay within the zeitgeist of console online multiplayer games. As such, they would (re) implement battlenet and game features (bugs) to mirror the state in the original Diablo games.

  • Sweet if they (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Rolgar ( 556636 ) on Tuesday November 16, 2010 @01:08AM (#34239362)

    Think of the physical conditioning of using full body action to play a Diablo style combat game. I think that would be the motivation I'd need to lose the thirty pounds I've been meaning to drop.

    • Now that would get me to buy Kinect and the corresponding console... but how do Diablo-style probability-based (defense points vs. attack rating determines hit probaility) attacks translate to full-motion gaming? That would make for a lot of frustrating, "I slashed right at his head but the game still says I missed!" type problems.

      • Easy: You have the game base the quality of the hit off of the physical mechanics of the player's swing.

        Swing half-assedly, you might hit, but you'll just have a glancing blow. Swing hard, it'll hurt more if it connects. Swing with precision and power, you hit and it might be a critical on top of it.

        Dance Central for Kinect does something like this - it tracks how your body is moving, the timing etc. for each dance move and gives you a score based on how well you perform the move. If you completely screw it

    • I really like rhythm games - they can make really repetitive tasks involved in learning physical skills a lot more fun. Recently I've been using Kinect to get more active via dance, tai chi, and yoga, and while I'm probably not actually learning to "dance" or do tai chi, it's a lot more fun with the instant feedback on form and I am getting a LOT more active.

      Between my Kinect and now Rock Band 3 with the pro-keys mode (and eventually the real guitar mode) my gaming might actually lead to me learning somethi

  • Oh you mean THOSE kind of consoles... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kale77in ( 703316 ) on Tuesday November 16, 2010 @01:18AM (#34239392) Homepage
    (I thought, cool, a MUD version! And about time...)

  • Diablo was released for the Playstation. Not a bad version, too - analogue movement (vs. 8-directional) felt really nice.

  • Diablo could work on a console. It's got that style. But what about Battle.net? Are you going to force that on to console gamers? Force them to have internet to play singleplayer? etc

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Jartan ( 219704 )

      The Battle.net tie-ins for single player are really just a ploy to cut down on pirating. On consoles they'd be far more worried about used game sales instead. I can't imagine Blizz releasing a game without Battle.net support for multiplayer and achievements though. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft will allow that. B.net is as fully featured as Live is these days so this could be a major sticking point that pushes Blizzard content towards the PS3 similar to what happened with Steam.

      • I can't imagine Blizz releasing a game without Battle.net support for multiplayer and achievements though. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft will allow that. B.net is as fully featured as Live is these days so this could be a major sticking point that pushes Blizzard content towards the PS3 similar to what happened with Steam.

        I can't imagine them not working out some kind of deal - there'd be no real difficulty to tie a Bnet account to an Xbox live account, they've already shown they can tie Bnet with WoW accounts - Facebook accounts - and whatever else they want. So Achievements can be both Xbox live and Bnet achievements - the system is pretty much just a mirror'd reference to each other.

        And if other games can get their own servers, like forcing all Call of Duty Multiplayer traffic through a few servers, why wouldn't Blizzard

    • cheats/mods/bootlegs are less prevalent on consoles than PCs.. besides, bnet is the only way to play co-op with your blizzard friends.. who knows? maybe the'll come up with a way to let you continue your save from multiple platforms (I can play my WoW toons from any computer running the "client")

      @Jartan - imagine.. a code comes with the game.. it's tied to your console or account - so reselling the game is useless.. they already do this with full DLC titles.. you can't transfer those purchases to another u

  • Both kinect and playstation move have the ability to take-on this kind of game better than a PC could. I think they need to expand their minds a little. *raises hand* hire me please!

  • "..or getting started on Diablo 4."

    hahahahahahahahaha ....

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

  • the title had me hoping for a diablo-based MUD. The console is not what it used to be.

    • very much agree. the visual technology of the original Diablo would be fine. unfortunately PvP would never work over WAN, most users just have too much latency.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Xserv ( 909355 )
        Many MMOs have been doing PvP for years in varying degrees of success. Hell, you thrive on the hope that the jackass you're about to stomp has a network burp and you get to pwn him with a +25 Strength Hammer.

        Not to mention FPS games and their deathmatch systems. They're essentially PvP in its purest form.

        Xserv
  • I didn't like Diablo when I played it on the PC, I gave it another try when my brother rented it out for the Playstation.
    We went out and bought it the next day and played co-op for weeks! It's one of my favourite Playstation memories, maybe because it was a solid co-op title that helped two brothers bond :)

    I wasn't that big a fan of Diablo 2 though, completed it just for the story but got bored often and took long breaks. I think it lost something in the added complexity and multiple towns/segments. I en

    • I had a great time playing Playstation Diablo 1 with an ex, but yeah, Diablo 2 didn't really grab me as a game.

      What's odd is that D2 did grab me as a platform for testing out automation concepts and designing very basic expert systems: I wound up learning to write software that could interface with the game, and then make decisions based on game-world information. Ultimately they wound up performing about as well as a "decent" player could. Unfortunately I never developed it to the point where it could expl

  • JUST GET THE FRICKIN' MAC/PC VERSION OUT FIRST!

    I know the goal is maximum revenue and stock/dividend price, but I'm going to be extremely disappointed if D3 doesn't come out next year. They got out SC2 this year, WoW Cataclysm releases in less than a month, they'd better get D3 out the door!
  • I think it would translate well to the console; at least from the gameplay perspective. How many of you liked/loved/time-sunk the Baldur's Gate 1/2 and Champions of Norrath on Playstation? Very similar perspective (3rd person overhead) with a ramp into the real RPG world with depth to the weapons and armor system that is lost in most console hack 'n' slash. I could see Diablo 3 being brought to the console in a similar fashion as well as bring in the opportunity for a solid multiplayer, non-split screen

  • Considering how much the videos of D3 look like a Snowblind engine game...really, just watch some videos of December of 2001's Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance and you'll see, why don't they just get Snowblind to do it. Their engine was used for most of the PS2's Diablo clones.

    And here's some gameplay, showing level up, ripply water, spell selection. You'll notice the camera is fully rotatable, in later Snowblind engine games, it was also zoomable as well. The cutscenes are done using the game engine.

    http://w [youtube.com]

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