Blizzard shows off some new screenshots in its latest Blizzcast. (Image courtesy: Blizzard.com)

Blizzard showing off some new screenshots today of the Diablo 3 UI.  The screenshots were released as part of the BlizzCast Episode 8. In the UI shots you can see the menu for character information and for weapons and armor layouts.

In the BlizzCast Bornakk asks Diablo 3 Game Director Jay Wilson about the return of shrines to the series.  “Well there are some aspects of shrines that we liked,” said  Wilson.  “Experience shrines I think are probably the prime example everyone uses. They’re fun because they drive the player forward. Monster shrines are sometimes fun because they bring out a rare that you didn’t know or weren’t expecting that could come from any direction and that’s cool.”

Wilson goes on to say that shrines will not be coming back in the same form, but the developers “are trying to bring back kind of the best things of them in a different form.”

Wilson was also asked if buildings and towns will be enterable, similar to Atma’s Bar in Diablo.  Wilson’s response: “There probably will be some buildings, my guess is not too far off from how many were enterable in Diablo 2.  Most towns we don’t make all the buildings enterable, it’s just a ton of art to create for very little reason.”

The adventurer picks up Restless Quilted Armor. I already want it. (Image courtesy: Blizzard.com)

The reason for limiting it?  Wilson said players tear through towns very quickly and don’t always check out every building.  There are plans for specialty buildings throughout the quest lines.

Items are always important in a game like Diablo.  Wilson was asked if there will be a large number of items that are viable for the play at the end of the game, or if it will be more like World of Warcraft, where each class has one specific “best” set.

“It’s definitely diverse and it’s diverse on a lot of different fronts,” said Wilson.  “When you think about Diablo 2, all the different ways you can build your character, we really expanded all the ways you can customize your character by adding in the rune system.”

Color has always been an important factor on the quality of items.  For instance, if you’re palying World of Warcraft and you see something purple drop, you know instantly that it’s ‘epic.’  Wilson was asked if they’ve set the color scheme in place for Diablo 3.  “We’ve kind of gone round and round on color scheme,” said Wilson.  “I know with World of Warcraft when they decided on a color scheme to fit quality, they were taking that from Diablo 2 and other MMOs, but they chose a color set that they felt was easier to read.”

What color will the item drops be? Blizzard is working on its color scheme. (Image courtesy: Blizzard.com)

But will that color scheme be making a transition to the darker world of Diablo?  “We actually tried to emulate that for awhile,” Wilson said.  “I think actually our announcement build or maybe our BlizzCon build was actually using a color scheme very similar to World of Warcraft and we generally found we just didn’t like it, it didn’t feel Diablo. So something as simple as that didn’t feel Diablo anymore. ”

The developers won’t be following the World of Warcraft route, but instead are going with something a little closer to Diablo 2’s colors. “Color scheme is pretty solid right now, it follows very closely to the Diablo 2 color scheme,” said Wilson. “We slightly shifted some of the hues to help, especially with color blindness, to try and get some of the more problematic combinations. We took out, for example, uniques were gold, we’ve changed their color I think we did purple which is a bit of a nod to World of Warcraft but the problem was gold and yellow were really close.”

Are you as excited as I am for the coming of Diablo 3 (some would joke that the excitement is for something that isn’t coming out until 2010 or beyond.)

I’m looking forward to the game, because I’ve played each incarnation of the series until I could see the marks my index finger made on the left mouse button.  Because it’s from Blizzard, it’s sure to be a game that is polished and fun to play, otherwise they wouldn’t put it out.

A snap shot of the UI with both character and inventory screens up. (Image courtesy: Blizzard.com)

Are you as excited as I am for the coming of Diablo 3 (some would joke that the excitement is for something that isn’t coming out until 2010 or beyond.)

I’m looking forward to the game, because I’ve played each incarnation of the series until I could see the marks my index finger made on the left mouse button.  Because it’s from Blizzard, it’s sure to be a game that is polished and fun to play, otherwise they wouldn’t put it out.

It’s sure going to sell millions of copies when it comes out (again, release jokes go here) and I’ll probably be at the midnight release, whenever that comes.

There’s even more information in the BlizzCast Episode 8. Make sure you go check it out.

Questions?  Hit up the comments section below, shoot me a note on Twitter, or send an email to matt(dot)schuler(at)woodtv(dot)com.