Diii.net: Everyone seems pretty happy with the function and form of the Barbarian’s Fury resource, but nothing has been revealed about the non-mana resources that the Wizard and Monk willuse. Can you give us some insight into what kind of play style their resources are meant to encourage?

Jay Wilson: Well for the Wizard we want to enforce the fact that she’s a glass cannon. I don’t think it’s fun to ever run out of mana. I’m not really interested in an extended resource for her. For the WD we’re okay with mana, since he’s got some pretty good skills to recover mana that also double as attacks. And he’s not defenseless when he’s out of mana. He’s got pets and ways to attack with them that aren’t mana intensive. For him that makes mana fairly interesting.

For the wizard, when she’s out of mana she just dies. And that’s notfun.  So if anything, we want to encourage how she plays. So she’s thekind of character that blasts first and asks questions later.  Veryvulnerable. So we want to implement a system that makes her moreblasty, but even more vulnerable. We want to make that a choice for theplayer. “Do I want to make myself more vulnerable in exchange for beingmore blasty.” And that’s a cool gameplay pull there.

For the Monk um… I’m not ready to talk about him yet since he’s justtoo early. We still haven’t decided exactly what we want to do withhim. We’re still playing around with his resource system.

Diii.net: Do you envision the health globes will boost thoseother resources in the way that the Wizard and Witch Doctor were gaining mana from them at Blizzcon?

Jay Wilson: Um,maybe? *sounding intrigued* Usually in the third or fourth skill revision on classes we look at that kind of thing. For the Witch Doctor we figured that a lot of the mana things we had on the Wizard would work better on the Witch Doctor. We were having trouble maintaining enough mana while play testing the Witch Doctor. Especially if players didn’t take a specific mana recovery skill. So we focused on spreadingthat out across a lot more of the class so he can pull mana back moreeasily.  When we get to other classes I’m sure we’ll look for more ofthat.

But the key is that we don’t necessarily want to…. we don’t want to cannibalize an existing gameplay mechanic. So when you take health globes that are already important, and you make them even more important, then that doesn’t really create gameplay. For the WD, the health globes weren’t that important a lot of times, since he very rarely took damage with his pets, so for him by enhancing his desire for health globes, we’re really putting gameplay where it wasn’t. So whatever we’re designing a class that’s what we look at.

Diii.net: We saw 8 Monk skills at BlizzCon.All were melee offensive or defensive. Can you give us some idea ofwhat other skills the character will have at his disposal?

Jay Wilson: Most of the Monk?s skills will focus on combatskills and attacks, along with his various escape skills. And we talked at Blizzcon that we?re likely to put some defensive and supportive abilities on him. Possibly Auras. We?ve not done the next round of skills on him yet so we?re not exactly sure.

Diii.net: Really? That?s handy, since I was also going to ask if he?d have any co-op or party-boosting skills.

Jay Wilson: We definitely want to do that with one class. Whether or not it?s the Monk hasn?t yet been decided. The Monk does seem to be the logical choice. The only reason we might not do with him is that he?s too logical.

Diii.net: You want to mix it up?

Jay Wilson: Exactly.

Diii.net: There was talk of the Monk?s lore, that the Monkshave 1001 gods and they give themselves tattoos to honor their gods andcelebrate their glorious achievements in life. Are any of his skillsgoing to be representative of those gods? Say there?s a fire god, andthe Monk would have a fire attack in His name?

Jay Wilson: Yes. Leonard Boyarskyis our lead world designer, and he?s definitely talked about some ofthe mythology of the Monk. And relating them to some of the Monk's skills.

Diii.net: On that topic, players are wondering if we'll see those tattoos on the monk in the game. 

Jay Wilson: I think some of them are in already. As towhether we see more during the course of the game, that's undecided. It's tied to the story arcs we create for the game.

Diii.net: Seems like a lot of work too, for the graphics? 

Jay Wilson: Not necessarily. IF we have them over the course of the game it?s fairly problematic. How are they seen through his equipment? If they?re part of his base texture then that?s a little easier.

Diii.net: The Monk has a staff and the fist weapons. Will hehave any weapon specific skills? Like dual wielding with just the fist weapons?

Jay Wilson: We?re talking about that. One of the things we've talked about with the Monk is that a lot of his skills don't really usehis weapons. So he's doing melee skills with his weapons almostholstered. For instance, Debilitating ... I think it?s called Crippling Wave now. We change them a lot and I get mixed up on the titles. Anyway, theCrippling Wave skill seems like it should be a staff skill. It?s kindof AoE, he does it and affects a lot of guys around him.  So it's apossibility that we'll do skills and redefine them based on combat styles and have those styles have a weapon preference.

Diii.net: The monk has a small shield on his arm in the concept art. Is that just decorative or ornamental, or is that an example of an actual equipment option for the character? 

Jay Wilson: It?s part of his armor. The artists were tryingto visualize the monk. One of the challenges is to do it by remaining faithful to the lore, and he needed armor. What's armor for a guy like that? They were exploring ideas of bracers and just defensive aspects of things on his arms. That gave him a lot of freedom of movement, but also protected him.

Diii.net: That was a question that I saw in our forums, people were wondering how the monk could use heavy plate mail and still do all of his high motion combo attacks. 

Jay Wilson: Well we do different versions of armor for every character. The Diablo II Sorceress could use heavy plate mail without actually looking like she was covered in heavy plate mail. For us, ourfocus is to make sure that every character has armor that they look cool in. So the Monk's armor isn't going to look like heavy plate armor. It's going to look like a shirt, what our imagination of what the Monk's armor could be. It?s definitely going to be equipment, but he's not going to look like he?s covered in metal, like the barb is likely to look.

Diii.net: One other question on the Monk's armor. Traditionally in RPGs, Monks have bonuses to light armor and penalties to heavy armor.  Is that something you guys are looking at? 

Jay Wilson: No. We're an item based game. The idea of a character that doesn't use items is foreign to our basic game philosophy. So one of the things we decided when we were creating the Monk was that we were not going to explore that aspect of the character. We're going to make a Diablo Monk, and the Diablo Monk uses items. 

• Jay Wilson Interview: Skills & Attributes
  

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Written by Flux @ Diii.net