Changes

<gallery>===Diablo 2 in Style=== One thing we do know about the skill trees in Diablo 3 is that they'll be fairly similar to those of Diablo 2, in terms of how quickly characters acquire new skills to play with. [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/jay-wilson-exclusive-full-transcript/] ::'''''Diii.net:''' Another follow up on that issue. People are wondering if the skills will be like Diablo 2 or more like World of Warcraft. Will we see more skills forever, or get the top level at level 30ish? ::'''Jay Wilson: '''Diablo 2. We’re following the same model. Here essentially our Nightmare and Hell difficulties are an extension of normal difficulty, not a continuation of more content. So normal difficulty ends our core game, and then nightmare and hell are replays of them on higher skills levels. So we are going to allow you to continue and develop your skills into the higher difficulty levels.   ===Skill Tree Changes During Development=== Only Blizzard knows exactly how many versions of the skill tree format they've gone through, but they've alluded to dozens of different major forms, and countless smaller varieties during their development period. At the skill panel during Blizzcon 2008 numerous different skill tree mock-up forms were shown on the powerpoint presentation.  ====2008 Early Form==== [[File:Barb-juggernaut-tree08.jpg|thumb|2008 Formatversion.]]The first skill tree shown to fans was revealed in the Blizzcon demo in late 2008. No official screenshots were released, though it was seen in [[:File:BarbSkill-juggernauttree-tree08berserker.jpg|many photos and videos]] taken from the event. Only the Barbarian's can be judged, since the Witch Doctor only had 11 skills spread over his three trees. Of the Barbarian's 50+ skills, they were arranged much like Diablo 2's skills, with three distinct skill trees, displayed on tabs in the same interface window. Each row had 3-4 skills, and there were no prerequisite skills linked by columns. To move down a row in the tree, 5 points had to be spent on each rowApril 2009 changes. The skills were not as discrete as those in Diablo 2, and there was considerable overlap between skills in different treesFile:Wizard_skill_tree. It appeared that the D3 team intended players to specialize in one tree per character, and thus included skills with redundant basic functions, such as +damage, +defense, etc. ====2009 Evolution==== A new style for skill trees was revealed in early jpg|August 2009, when several screenshots were released along with BlizzCast 8. This was an evolutionary change, and there were still 3 tabs/trees per character, though each tree was more open and a fair number of column-style prerequisite lines had been added.* [httpFile://diablo.incgamers.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=2649&cat=611 Screenshot example].  This style changed entirely by Blizzcon 2009 in August, with the individual skill Skill-tree tabs removed-blizzcon09-barb-muldric. All characters now possessed one big skill tree with all 30+ skills arranged in rows. There were a few columnjpg|Fan-style prerequisites, but for the most part it was a large skill "menu," with only prerequisites made recreations of 5 points per column required to move down to the more powerful skillstrees seen at Blizzcon 2009.  No official images of this were released, but numerous exact recreations were mocked up by talented community artists. * [http://diablo.incgamers.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=3526&cat=611 Barbarian Skills].* [http://diablo.incgamers.com</gallery/showphoto.php?photo=3528&cat=611 Witch Doctor Skills].* [http://diablo.incgamers.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=3542&cat=611 Wizard Skills].* [http://diablo.incgamers.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=3527&cat=611 Monk Skills]. It's known that the skill trees were largely reworked in late 2009, but no images or further details have yet been revealed.>