Extra Goodies
Of course, Blizzard added much more to their dungeons than just a few traps and a spiffy background. The Diablo franchise has always been known for its random dungeon generator, which ensured that players would never have the same experience twice. Diablo 3 takes this concept one step further by including bonus events. These events occur at certain points in the game, but it is never certain where or when they will appear. The simplest example is a goblin bandit that players can encounter at various points in the game. The goblin will attempt to flee with its bag of treasure, leaving behind a trail of gold. If the goblin is killed before it can escape, it will drop its enormous stash for the player to loot. The creature’s lore entry indicates that it is from the demonic realm of Greed, which makes me wonder if players will actually be able to visit such a place and subsequently loot it. The goblin aside, the most impressive of these events are definitely the random quests that appear inside certain dungeons. NPCs will never guide you to these quests, so it is possible that less observant players will miss them entirely. For example, there is a segment of the beta in which the player must retrieve an item that is located in any one of three crypts. In either of the “wrong” crypts, the player will stumble upon an object that will initiate a short quest within the dungeon. At this point, there are two possible quests that may become available, and the player has no way of predicting which one. This gives Diablo 3 a great deal of replay potential, since it may take several play-throughs to experience all of the game’s content. The amount of extras that will be available at launch can only be guessed at, but they should be more than enough to satisfy loot junkies and achievement hunters alike.
To be continued…
I simply cannot wait to get my hands on the full game. It looks absolutely brilliant in every way, and manages to introduce new concepts to a franchise that has been dear to me for most of my life. Diablo 3 hits shelves on May 15th, and I already anticipate it becoming one of the best games this year, if not one of my own personal favorites. Be sure to pick up your own copy, and check back in at GDN for our full review.
