DiabloCast: Episode XI - It's Over 9,000+

I apologize this episode was a bit late, but you'll find out why if you listen in! It's a pretty decent reason and the next episode will be on time still. In this episode, we talked about the Runestone System, as Blizzard just recently officially released it, and the removal of the Talisman. In addition, we talk a bit about the upcoming event, BlizzCon! If you missed the tenth episode, you can check it out here. Otherwise, the eleventh episode covered the following topics:
Episode 11 topics list:

• Runestones Hit Diablo3.Com, Talisman Gets Cut
• Runestone System
• Seventeenth Batch of Screenshots and Art
• Eighteenth Batch of Screenshots and Art

The Cosmology of Diablo: The Worldstone

Resized to 99% (was 650 x 300) - Click image to enlarge

1. The Cosmology of Diablo
2. The Cosmology of Diablo: Worlds
3. The Cosmology of Diablo: Angels and Demons
4. The Cosmology of Diablo: The Worldstone


It's been a while (a year in fact) but the Cosmology series will finally be finished. This time we will deal with the heavy subject of the Worldstone: where it comes from, what it does and what impact its destruction at the end of the Lord of Destruction (LoD) will have on the world of Sanctuary.

As a reminder there will be plenty of spoilers from the Sin War novels here, so if you've yet to read the books but still wish to do so, you should stop reading now.

Unlike the previous installments, citations will be placed at the bottom of the post for a more fluid reading experience.

What is it?
How does it hide Sanctuary?
How does it increase the power of the edyrem?
Was it stolen?
Conflicts with lore in LoD?
What will its destruction lead to?
References

What is it and what does it do?

The Worldstone was an immense crystal that sat at the heart of Mount Arreat. It stretched over a hundred feet tall and had a jagged, crimson structure.¹ The stone itself is made up of thousands upon thousands of small facets that flash with multi-colored lightning. Fragments of the Worldstone also float around the cavern, continuously colliding, breaking, and reforming.²

Originally it had one purpose only: to hide Sanctuary from outsiders, specifically Heaven and Hell, in order for the angelic and demonic deserters to remain safe. Four important changes were made to it over the course of it's life however:

• Inarius bound it to himself, preventing anyone but him to draw on its power. This secured his dominance of Sanctuary.³
• Inarius changed the resonance of the stone, which started to diminish the powers of the nephalem.⁴
• Lilith made an alteration to its resonance after her return to Sanctuary from the void, which allowed the nephalem to once again grow in power.⁵
• Uldyssian made a change to the core of the Worldstone which allowed the powers of the edyrem to grow faster than before.⁶

Important point: It is often argued, here and in other places, that Uldyssian tied the Worldstone to himself when he changed its structure. This does not appear to be the case. It is still possible that he did so, but there's no clear reference made to it anywhere.

Not all of these effects remained after the end of the Sin War however. Inarius' tie to the Worldstone is broken by Uldyssian⁷ and the spell that Lilith cast, is most likely dispelled or overridden with the core change that Uldyssian made. The same seems likely in regards to the dminishing efffect Inarius placed on it.

Two powers were not specifically stated to have been altered, however: the hiding power that allowed Sanctuary to remain undetected, and the change Uldyssian made that increased the growth of nephalem powers. These will be dealt with below.

How does it hide Sanctuary?
We all know the following as "fact": the worldstone protects Sanctuary from Heaven and Hell, and now that it is gone Hell is sure to invade! It's maintained in the games, and every Blizzcon at some panel there's a developer mentioning it. However, there are some serious problem with this theory, as I will show. First, we must look at how the Worldstone actually provides protection.

In essence, it works much like camouflage. Imagine that Sanctuary is a soldier hiding in a forest in full camouflage. If he is perfectly still he is nigh impossible to spot. Should he move, he becomes easier to spot, and the faster he moves the easier it becomes. However, unless someone is actually watching the spot where he is when he moves, he can remain undetected, even if he is running.

This is exactly how it is portrayed to work in the books. The Worldstone is consistently described as having been made in order to hide Sanctuary.^8,9 Both Inarius and Hell are furthermore concerned that if they move too fast, in essence use too much magic, they run the risk of exposing Sanctuary to Heaven¹⁰. This very neatly explains why Hell hasn't invaded Sanctuary in full force, and why Inarius simply hasn't stamped out Hell. Doing either would require so much power that Heaven would undoubtedly discover Sanctuary as a side-effect. For this reason, Diablo doesn't even show himself in full force, as that mere act might alert Heaven of Sanctuary.¹¹ Inarius has similarly contained his powers all these years so that Heaven would not find him.¹²

Thus the Triune was created to slowly turn mankind towards Hell, and the Cathedral of Light shortly thereafter to counter their efforts. This also helps explain why there are so many morlu in the first two books and relatively few demons. Summoning an army of demons would surely cause Sanctuary to be more visible to Heaven, as would Diablo in his full form, but an army of morlu are just dead humans. Raising them from the dead requires no direct interaction with Hell. It does require some magical energies to raise them from the dead, but this is probably on a magnitude far smaller than what is required to summon an army of demons.

What does this tell us? This tells us that the effect the Worldstone provides is the camouflage cover in the soldier analogy, and in itself, the cover is near perfect. However, heavy use of magical energies or the mere presence of angels and demons in the world makes Sanctuary "move," thus making it noticeable to those outside of it.

How does it increase the power of the edyrem?
As stated above, Uldyssian made a change to the Worldstone with the intent of increasing the power of the edyrem, or rather to make their powers grow faster. While it's never actually made clear how that works, it is clearly shown throughout the final book that the powers of the edyrem begin to take control of them, fueling their emotions and refusing to subdue once arisen.²² Uldyssian does remark near the end of the Veiled Prophet that their powers have grown too fast, and that they weren't ready for them yet.¹³

In the final chapter, when the "Reset" as I like to call it has been performed, where all the inhabitants of Sanctuary have their memories of recent events removed, all magical powers are also absent in the previously powerful Serenthia and Achilios. It seems impossible that Heaven and Hell would be responsible for this; if they can remove the powers of the edyrem so easily, what use are they as weapons?

Perhaps their powers didn't disappear. Since they've all lost their memories, it could be they still possess them, but simply no longer remember how to use them. Since the gift had to be awakened within the edyrem before they can use them, whatever powers they had would not transfer to the next generation of humans, and so the powers would be lost, and humanity would be free to develop at a slow pace again.

Was it stolen?
There is an obscure sentence where Tyrael says that the Worldstone was stolen.¹⁴ He does not say from who, yet it seems unlikely he could mean anyone but Heaven.

In another passage, Trag'Oul says that the "essence of creation" was stolen, and that he was contained in it. As the world was shaped by the angels and demons, so too did he evolve.¹⁵

These two references are highly confusing. No other mentions are made in regards to whether Inarius and/or Lilith stole something in order to forge Sanctuary. But if the Worldstone, or whatever was used to shape it, was stolen, then than could mean that Heaven or Hell should be capable of figuring out how to change it, which could explain how the edyrem lost their powers after the Reset.

Conflicts with lore from LoD
So far this unfortunately makes little sense. In Lord of Destruction, the Worldstone is depicted as erecting some sort of barrier around Sanctuary. As long as it stood, it prevented angels and demons from entering en masse, but as soon as it was destroyed, there was nothing holding Hell back. This is not how its portrayed in the novels. Not once is the Worldstone made out to do anything but hide Sanctuary.

In fact, the idea that the Worldstone would provide a barrier is directly disproved in the novels. During the final chapters of The Veiled Prophet, Sanctuary is truly invaded by both Heaven and Hell as angels and demons pour out over the world.^16,17 There is nothing that stops them. In fact, the only thing that did hold Heaven back for a while was Trag'Oul.¹⁸ He in fact seems to have performed a function similar to what is usually ascribed to the Worldstone, for he managed to "shield Sanctuary from their sight" after Heaven had already learned of Sanctuary's existence, and only when his shield failed could the Heavenly Host invade Sanctuary proper.

What is even more interesting is that the Angiris Council and Mephisto form a pact between themselves. The pact is specifically made so that neither Heaven nor Hell shall interfere in the development of Sanctuary.¹⁹ This pact is not just a verbal contract, it also involves Mephisto leaving "his mark" on Sanctuary in order for the Angiris to accept it. Whatever that actually means is never made clear, but it's possible that it somehow forces Hell, or at least Mephisto, to abide by it.

There is also a pact made in regards to the Worldstone, but what that actually results in is never explained in the books.²⁰

What will its destruction lead to?
At this point it seems safe enough to assume that the Worldstone, in and of itself, was not what prevented Hell from invading prior to the events of Diablo III. But is there a way to make all of this fit together without retconning out the events of LoD entirely?

I believe there is, and the key lies in the last chapters of The Veiled Prophet. The entire finale is centered around this very pact that I mentioned above, the sole intention of which is to make sure that neither Heaven nor Hell will invade Sanctuary. There's also mention of a pact regarding the Worldstone, and the quote of Tyrael where he claims the Worldstone was stolen. These three parts allow us to piece something together.

When the Angiris and Mephisto convene they agree to form a pact regarding the Worldstone. Given that neither side is likely to trust the other, the pact would have to somehow force both sides into agreeing to it. If it lies within the powers of Heaven and Hell to erect some sort of barrier around Sanctuary, then that would seem a likely course of action for them to take.

Now the Worldstone is at face value just a big crystal, but it also permeates the entire world in some way.²¹ What better way to erect such a barrier than to do it through the Worldstone? The powerful artifact would maintain the barrier and make sure that neither Heaven nor Hell will be given the opportunity to invade Sanctuary. The final piece of the puzzle is the part about the Worldstone being stolen. The Worldstone has proven extremely hard to actually manipulate and change, but if it was taken from either Heaven or Hell, or combined using some magics from both, then it would seem reasonable that the task of altering it could be performed if both Heaven and Hell cooperated in doing so.

This allows us to fit it together with established LoD lore. Baal, when trying to corrupt it, would have been trying to alter whatever arrangement had been made there jointly with Heaven so that Hell would once again be granted full access. Tyrael destroyed it so that both forces would once again be able to invade should the need arise. This would mean that the reason Hell hasn't invaded has been because such a response would have garnered an immediate counter-response from Heaven, eventally leading to all humans perishing, something neither side wants. It's simply a stalemate. Such a stalemate doesn't seem likely to last for very long, becauase if it were then there would have been little reason for Mephisto to cement the earlier pact with his own blood. The stalemate is inherently unstable due to the nature of the war between Heaven and Hell, and that is why Hell begins to move during the events of Diablo III. The reason Hell hasn't invaded yet is thus that it was simply a matter of time.

Incidentally, this also ties in well with the banishment that the Three suffered from the Lesser Evils. The actual act of banishing them could not be seen as an attempt to invade, and depending on how the Worldstone pact was formulated it might have been that Heaven was prevented from doing anything about it. On the other hand, even if the magics used to banish the Three were indeed successful in circumventing the protection placed over Sanctuary, it would still have prevented a full invasion, thus leaving the Three alone on Sanctuary. Powerful yes, but not powerful enough to subdue an entire world on their own. What they could do however was to use their exile in order to get to the Worldstone. And the soulstones, shards of the Worldstone, could perhaps allow them to negate the barrier around Sanctuary.

One problem still remains. During Diablo II, it is specifically stated by Tyrael at the end of Act IV that Baal is searching for the Worldstone.²³ This indicates that the Three had no prior knowledge of the Worldstone's location, which fits nicely with what is established in the Sin War. The Three are never made out to actually know where the Worldstone is located. However, if the Three did in fact not know where the Worldstone was when they were banished to Sanctuary, then it doesn't seem likely any pact regarding the Worldstone could have involved any tampering with it. How could it have been if Mephisto wasn't present? I think we can assume Mephisto would not be happy with closing any sort of deal regarding the Worldstone without knowing where it is and what it's capable of.

All in all, it's still a bit unclear on how exactly the Worldstone was relevant during the events of LoD. We will probably have to wait until the very end of Diablo III to find out unfortunately.

Eighteenth Batch of Screenshots and Art

Blizzard has just released their eighteenth batch of screenshots (see here if you missed the seventeenth) for hitting the 975k 'Like' mark. Once again, we've got the high resolution versions at our disposal here on DiabloFans.

The first image is a concept of the male Witch Doctor.

Resized to 58% (was 1105 x 1600) - Click image to enlarge

The second is the city of Caldeum in the desert region of Kehjistan.

Resized to 60% (was 1076 x 706) - Click image to enlarge

The third and final is a screen shot of the Male Wizard using the wave of force spell to crush some enemies.

Resized to 50% (was 1280 x 720) - Click image to enlarge

Click the images to bask in the glory of the high resolution versions that you likely won't see anywhere else! 25,000 more likes to go until the 1,000,000 mark where we can get some more images, or who knows what else! This is the last milestone so everyone pitch in! Go visit facebook.com/Diablo and 'Like' the page to sprint to the finish!

Runestones Hit Diablo3.Com, Talisman Gets Cut

Runestones, the skill-modifying hallmark of Diablo III, now have an official page on Blizzard's official Diablo III site.

Official Blizzard Quote:

Extensive character customization is one of the primary design goals for Diablo III. Players will have many ways to customize and build each of the five character classes, including charms, traits, enhancements, gems, armor, weapons, dyes, skills, and the feature we're highlighting in this article: runestones.

The page comes complete with recaps and demonstrations for a select skill of each character. Here's a selection of other articles that you might be interested in if you haven't been reading up on these lil' guys:

Resurrections, Shrines, Poison Clouds and Rune Effects
Bashiok on Rune Levels and Progression
Working Skill Rune Names Disclosed

Of course, the most accurate and up-to-date information on runestones is now all on the official page. Special thanks to peign for posting this information first!

Talisman Gets Cut

Furthermore, the Talisman, which was previously a storage device for the player's charms, has been cut for the foreseeable future.

The device essentially forced players to allot a specific amount of space for charms, a mechanic and item hold-over from the days of Diablo II, while simultaneously freeing-up real inventory space for everything else found on Sanctuary escapades. The decision between power and inventory space often left Diablo II players with conflicting desires to gather items and to become exceptional and efficient warriors, and so the talisman largely resolved this issue. Bashiok elaborates:

Official Blizzard Quote:

Well, I can say from feedback and testing we've made the decision to pull the Talisman from the initial release of the game.

It was a cool idea at its core, but right now it's just really too basic and doesn't provide anything you can't get from the armor and weapons you're equipping. It requires a lot of the player to invest time and energy into finding and storing yet another type of item just to add player stats. When they do all that, it's just to do something pretty boring that they can already do with awesome things like armor and weapons. Originally the Talisman had a much deeper design, but it proved very ambitious and it got whittled down over the years to a very basic +stat per single square. We like simplicity in our designs, but charms became superfluous in their purpose.

We really like the core idea, but we don't want to stop everything and spend a large amount of time trying to fix the Talisman, although we do have some great ideas already. So, it'll very likely come back in some form or another after the game ships. And be awesome.

Diablo Lore Series Part 1

Need to catch up on the lore covering the World of Sanctuary in time for Diablo III? Want to see some badass fanart (including from our own Umpa)? Let us join Force as he takes a look at Diablo's history (pre-D1), in part one of this three part lore series, covering the conflict between the High Heavens and the Burning Hells, and Sanctuary's role in between.

Diablo 3 Demonhunter Gameplay video

Diablo 3 Monk full Gameplay from Blizzcon

Check out the Monk (Video):

Diablo 3 Blizzcon Demo

Diablo 3 Multiplayer Preview by Gamestar

Quote:

GameStar-Redakteur Christian Schmidt beleuchtet das kooperative Spiel von Diablo 3, aber auch den neuen PvP-Modus.

The Follower Blues

As we all know, the Followers System was released just yesterday. However, there has already been a lot of chatter amongst the community concerning the system being single player only and the fact that the Followers will really only be viable in the Normal difficulty. As you can see, those restrictions pose some problems. It almost discourages the social experience by forcing players to play alone in order to take advantage of the Followers System, and then leaves us out to dry once we complete Normal.

Official Blizzard Quote:

Followers were originally going to be available during co-op, and actually are right now because of a bug in the current build we're playing. And it's crazy. If you're unfortunate enough to also have a witch doctor, it's insanity. Eight characters running around plus all of the potential pets. It's complete chaos. That's the biggest reason they aren't going to be available outside of single player.

Not wanting the game to be chaotic is completely understandable and is likely one of the contributing factors behind why they initially decreased the maximum party size from eight players [in D2] to four this time around. Going back and doubling the party size would be the last thing they want to do if things truly do become chaotic. However, this begs the question, how will the game feel with a full party of Witch Doctors'? If adding four more potential "summons" turns the game into chaos, how apocalyptic will the game feel with a full set of summons from each of the four WD's? Regardless, if we do want to take advantage of these Followers, we won't be able to with a full party anyway.

Official Blizzard Quote:

It encourages co-op by giving people that are going to be playing the game alone from the start many of the thoughts and process that go into playing with another person. Seeing someone else on screen. Thinking about their items and skills. Hearing them talk. That all sounds silly from a lot of our perspectives, because, we all play co-op and who needs a primer? Well, a lot of people, and that's where this encourages co-op. More people playing co-op means more people in a mindset of an online community, and that has many far reaching benefits for all players.

It seems to me like we have to drop the Mercenary line of thinking from D2 in order to understand this decision. Essentially, Bashiok makes it sound like Followers aren't really supposed to be Mercenaries, but they are supposed to act as party members that replace other real players for those users who refuse to play multiplayer. When you look at the system in that perspective, it makes this functionality great, as it adds some form of cooperation for those who would rather play by themselves, and could even persuade said user to jump online and play with other users, for some real co-op play. This is simply because once you complete Normal by yourself, or rather with the [fake player] Follower, the Follower will become useless.

Official Blizzard Quote:

Followers will not stay alive easily past Normal, and if they're not alive you aren't going to be getting their bonuses. I'm sure people will try to game this, and ideally they will fail. If not we will ensure followers are not part of the end-game MF equation. They are not intended to be, and we will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure they cannot be.

Now you'll be yearning for that co-op play and your only choice will be to jump on Battle.net and find some peers to game with. Blizzard is doing some real funky reverse psychology to promote the social experience, but in the end, they are still promoting the social experience.

When Will Beta Begin?

May nineth's conference call left us with just enough beta information to drive us crazy but not enough to mark our calendars (if you missed the coverage, see May 9th Conference Call.) The aforementioned beta is being "targeted" to hit testing audiences sometime in Q3 (third quarter) of this year. But just what does "targeted" mean? Today, we'll take a look at instances in which Blizzard has not been on time, and then we'll see what these delays mean for eager Diablo III beta testers.



If there's any one game developing company known for delays...Well, let's just take a look at the facts. The Diablo franchise, itself, is no spring chicken. There's the ten years we've been patiently awaiting Diablo III, and the seven years we had to wait for even the announcement during the final Worldwide Invitational (see Diablo III Announced). But how far back to delays go in Diablo's history?

Did you know that Diablo II was originally slated for a 1999 release date? According to a very archaic passage from the reputed ShackNews game news network, the second installment was delayed an entire year.

But the delays don't stop there. The Starcraft franchise has had its share of shortcomings, even establishing a hallmark among ghosted games. Starcraft: Ghost has been on what Blizzard calls an "indefinite hold" since 2006, with a game announcement reaching as far back as 2002. Guess the game was dead before it even hit shelves.

For a more modern gaming audience, the delays of Starcraft II might be a source for more sorrow. In 2009, GossipGamer reported that the game was being delayed due to Battle.net conflictions (and the game still launched with Battle.net problems.) Before even that delay, it was further put off track due to the taskforce needed to push out Wrath of the Lich King.

As for the much-loved Warcraft RTS franchise, which is often differentiated by fans as being entirely separate from World of Warcraft, Warcraft III was delayed by as much as a year, with a purported release set for 2001 and later delayed to 2002.

Major game releases haven't been the only victims. The hit-or-miss Diablo II patch 1.10 faced some sluggishness from it's announcement when it finally hit the scenes in 2003. Patch 1.13, which we covered extensively from inception to implementation, suffered numerous delays due to patch work on Warcraft III and other unspecified reasons (see WCIII Patch is Up- Diablo II Patch 1.13 Soon to Follow?).

How should these details factor in to our beta date hopes, if at all? To be fair, several things should be taken into consideration with regards to the past. Diablo II was, of course, being developed under a much smaller team than the more modern one led by Jay Wilson. In addition to creating an entirely new game engine from the ground up for Diablo III, Blizzard has undergone several employment revamps since Blizzard North's time, making their last ten years nothing to scoff at.

Starcraft: Ghost was being developed entirely by third-party developers until Blizzard simply bought out the latest company, Swingin' Ape Studios, in 2004. Maybe there's something to be said for it not being directly developed by Blizzard Entertainment. And perhaps to Starcraft II's credit, the game was entirely finished and ready for release, but structural details with the latest rendition of the Battle.net system caused some unforeseen problems.

Years later, Blizzard now boasts dedicated development teams for each franchise, as well as a Battle.net team and a budget that would make most developers envious. With relatively little else going on for Blizzard development-wise, perhaps we can place more faith in "targeted" dates. Let's hear what you think!

Trait Update

Official Blizzard Quote:

Quote

There are a number of traits which are too situational to be deemed worthwhile to invest in. A few examples are:

• Increases damage against beasts.
• Increases damage against demons.
• Increases damage against undead.

We agree, and they were removed from Traits a while back. (not that you could have known that) So yay!

We don't want traits (passives) to be boring. Even the ones that are pretty bland stat increase type passives, we try to make them feel weighty. Trait points are fairly rare, so that lets us make each point feel a lot sexier to spend. Even if they're just standard +% stat passives, they're BIG +% increases. But, there's also a lot of traits that are fairly intricate in what they provide, and to no small degree can be game changers. Either way they'll be a crucial component to any character build.

Although the first part of this quote is rather self-explanatory, the rest is considerably more interesting. It appears as though the percentages associated with traits have been boosted since we saw them at the Blizzcon demo, and as a result they have a bigger impact on the build of your character, leading to even more customization possibilities. However, that does not mean traits have become all that much more powerful than the last time we saw them in action. Although the percentages gained from traits has increased, the Diablo III team has also drastically decreased the amount of trait points a character will have at the maximum level.

Official Blizzard Quote:

@spiri7walker We give them out every 3 levels, the first one at level 3, so 19 trait points are available to spend at level 60.

When they were announced at Blizzcon, traits were given out every other level, and the Diablo III team quickly pointed out that they weren't quite satisfied with that setup. In a change that seems comparable to the decision to put the level cap at 60, Blizzard has decided to make trait points more valuable and less common. As a result, characters will probably end up more focused around certain traits instead of being spread out across large amounts of passives.

Despite this more focused approach, it does appear as though there are plenty of choices, including ones that wouldn't initially appear to have a place in a viable combat build.

Official Blizzard Quote:

Quote

I'm very happy to hear this, but what of lucky and intimidation? They are also fairly controversial traits that increase noncombat related stats.

Lucky increases gold find by 10%. It's tough to say how that kind of thing will balance out. It wouldn't be worth taking until at least Nightmare, IMO, and even then a trait point is a fairly powerful thing. I don't know if I'd spend it on gold find. But, that's kind of a cool choice then, right?

This is not the first time Bashiok has used gold find as an example of an "interesting choice," so it would appear as though gold is actually important and as a result gold find is something to consider. However, as Bashiok points out, that does not mean theres much room for it, especially if we are only awarded nineteen trait points. In the end, we'll just have to wait for the beta to really see what traits remain and how the trait system as a whole functions.

Update to the update:

Official Blizzard Quote:

Quote

@Diablo And will there be any quests, which are not required for main story progression, that will award you additional trait/skill points?

@spiri7walker Currently all skill and trait points are metered out purely through gaining levels.

So it appears that, at least for the moment, we won't be getting traits as rewards from anything other than leveling, unlike in Diablo II where a select few quests rewarded the player with extra skill points.