Lead Designer Talks about Diablo 3

It's nice to see that videogame designers can step into the shoes of the common fan and understand how quickly we can turn to love or hate because of the smallest details on a screenshot or because of a wrong color palette in a trailer.

Lead designer for Diablo 3 Jay Wilson thinks that there will always be fans that are unsatisfied with progress on Diablo 3, especially after such a good game as Diablo 2. He's very aware that you cannot please everyone and that, as a developer, you have to make choices and stand by them in front of the fans. And Jay Wilson is thoroughly prepared for more hate coming his way in the near future.

As he puts it in a Videogamer interview, “I would hate me too!” is the first thing that pops up in his head when thinking about how necromancer lovers are reacting to the Witch Doctor class in Diablo 3. But early on in the development process, the people at Blizzard understood that they had to improve every aspect of the game in order to make their next project a truly outstanding experience. And the Necromancer was so well done and implemented in the second game in the series they did not see any way to improve that class. So they ditched it, along with all other Diablo 2 classes, and created new characters from scratch. Wilson says that the Barbarian is returning mainly because it was basically re-created under a different name.

He also states that “when we announce the next class, which is quite similar to a previous class, then all those players will hate us too. You can't make everybody happy, but I think when the game finally comes out, players will find there's a good class for them, one they will love as much as the ones that came before” while also conceding that “in the expansions we'll consider bringing back old classes. We just don't want to do it with the first release”.