This thought surely have crossed your mind once while. With the games going multi platform, you would wish some exclusives will be releasing the next expansion on your favorite platform. Most of us would own both PC and consoles taking the best of both worlds, some would rather stick to one only. Here I am going to say out my thoughts.

Development time

Diablo III UI

Developing games has always been a nightmare, especially for the PC. There is a multitude of hardware and software that the user has and the game must at least be working on most of them. Not only the developer need to make sure they get it working on the PC, users as well need to do some tweaking if they found out for some reason their installation is not working or their game is not working smooth enough.

As for consoles, it is a matter of within the construct of machine. The specifications are the same for all of them so what works for one will definitely works for all. This gives the developer less time to trying make the game work and more time optimizing it.

Patching

And the above point also lead to one disastrous thing, patching the game. Usually games require patch for 2 main reason, adding new content and fixing the game. While both PC and console need their fixes, console are easier to fix than their PC counterpart. The same reason would be the different configuration of the PC.

So the patch for PC might come later than the console as there are more things to fix and more testing to be done before it is released on the public. And most of the time patches always causes problems that the developer might not foresee. The consoles does that too but less. And not to mention they are easier to hot fix than the PC.

Online platform

The Xbox 360 have their Xbox live and PS3 got their PSN. Both online console have their online platform readily there. So there is no real need to develop an online platform for the game from scratch. This saves development time too.

But can Blizzard make use of these platform to integrate with their current Battle.net? The console online platform are made by others so Blizzard have limited control over them. Not to mention Blizzard came out with a new Battle.net(2.0) that lets them combine their Starcraft, Diablo and Warcraft all into one online platform. So a new build of the game is almost neccessary needed to make sure it runs properly on the console’s online platform.

Game controller vs Keyboard and mouse

Controller vs Keyboard

That will be the biggest drawback. The first Diablo was develop with a console counterpart but Diablo 2 did not have it’s console port and it was popular to be one of those heavy clicking hack and slash games. And with the new Diablo 3 UI that was shown, it will be pretty hard for Diablo 3 to reconfigure itself to fit a game controller. I can’t imagine using the joystick to navigate while spamming the A button to attack then using a combination of D-Pad + buttons to cast my spells. The game controller also limits the readily function that you might be able to set.

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There were rumours that a new class would soon be unveiled at the end of March, so when the Archivist was announced on April 1st, fans were excited to find out more but were quickly shot down as they go through the details of the class. It was obviously an April Fools joke. But it could have still be fun if it was the real deal.

So, just what is the Archivist?

Remember the Paladin from Diablo 2? Well, from what I read, the Archivist originates from the same place as the Paladins of WestMarch. Though from the same background, they are not the usual warriors/spellcasters kind of heroes. The Archivist are actually scholars equipped with Ancient Knowledge of Light.

Yes! These are basically Nerds in the ancient universe of Diablo. Don’t think that they are just your ordinary Nerds though, they have awesome cool skills and they can really kick ass!! Have a look at the skills below:

Lorenado:

Tornado + Ancient Papers = Monster Killing Papercuts!!

Quest Bolt:

Monster Thinking: Look! Man! Me Kill Man!
*Hit by a Quest Bolt*
Monster no longer can think.

Shush

Archivist: (Super Pissed) SHHH! NO TALKING IN THE LIBRARY!!
*BOOM*
Archivist: (Sh*t I just shouted myself) Uh..oh…
*BOOM*

And the best thing is, they have even got special dialogues which no other character has!

Even if this is an April Fool joke, the character is still very interesting. I do hope blizzard will add this character in as an easter egg/bonus or something.

Check it out now at the Diablo 3’s official site:

Btw, in case you didn’t notice the hint from Blizzard when the character was released:
1) the character is released on 1/4/2009
2) it’s the only character that comes with specially designed player interface, with funny icon and Brain Power Globe instead of Mana/Energy Globe
3) it’s the only character with special diagloues, even some that has nothing to do with the game
4) He’s the only character who dies in all the skill video: 1 hit KO by a zombie, and blew up after using Shush.

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