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'''Death''' comes to us all, especially in [[Diablo III]]. The D3 Team wants to make the game more challenging and involving than Diablo II, and they've incorporated numerous design ideas to create this, while avoiding punishing death penalties for softcore characters. [[Hardcore]] characters are as they were in Diablo III; mortal. One death there is the end of a character. Forever.
When a character is very low on health, a reddish haze appears around the outside of the screen, providing an emergency visual indicator. The sound effects are tweaked also, with the sound of a heartbeat added to emphasize the danger of imminent death.
===Playing RecklesslyDiscouraging Reckless Play===
Diablo II's death penalty cost some gold, and experience as well on Nightmare and Hell. This was painful for players who were trying to level up, but for a character who was totally devoted to finding items, the death penalties were meaningless, since no items were lost. It was therefore strategically wise to go full out on [[magic find]] gear and play with reckless speed, since you'd find more items, wouldn't die very often, and when you did the penalties were negligible.
Most fans still feel that some sort of death penalty is required, so players are not penalized for playing recklessly and ruining party games. The developers clearly don't think so, and since at this point they know the game far better than the fans, we basically have to take their word for it.
==Death Penalties==
The "Death Penalty" is the term used to describe the negative consequences imparted to the player when they are killed by monsters or other players. The stated penalties have varied during Diablo III's development, and may not yet be written in stone. The most recent information came from Jay Wilson in August 2010<ref>[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/jay-wilson-interview-pcgames.de/Jay Wilson interview], - August 2010</ref> when he said that death now results in durability losses to equipped items, which may result in expensive repairs.
An earlier comment came from [[Bashiok]] in September 2008.<ref>[http://www.diii.net/n/696684/bashiok-on-death-penaltiesBashiok forum post]. - September 2008</ref> At that point there was no death penalty at all, other than the loss of pride and some time spent to return to the sight of your failure.
::''...we've found that a check point system works really well. Throughout your adventures, and generally at the ends of each "floor" of a dungeon your character is saved to a checkpoint. When you die you're dropped back at the last checkpoint with a small amount of health, and the rest regenerates slowly. It's obviously a very forgiving system as it is. It's just too early to put a ton of thought in to what penalties there should be, if any, added on top of it.''
[[File:Death-revive.jpg|thumb|250px|Death and revive.]]
Bashiok also said this, regarding death in the [[BlizzCon 2008]] demo:<ref>[http://www.diii.net/blog/comments/what-happens-when-you-dieBashiok forum post] - August 2008</]ref>
::''We had a [[checkpoint]] system in the BlizzCon demo we showed, where you would die and pop back up at the last chekpoint you came across. Some of that was for the convenience of the demo, but we do like the checkpoint system and intend to carry that forward in the same or similar form. We're not looking toward corpse retrieval currently.''
::''Any death system we do have needs to allow players to get back into the action quickly, but not be so meaningless that you’re just flinging your corpse against a wall of monsters over and over until you finally get through.''
It's not known if there will be more substantial penalties on higher difficulty levels; presumably characters will be wearing equipment that is more expensive to repair, thus letting the team scale up the costs accordingly. It's unlikely that more harsh penalties will be imposed, since that runs counter to one of the team's main design goals. <ref>[http://www.diii.net/n/687801/jay-wilson-from-leipzig-5Jay Wilson Interview]- August 2009</ref>
::''"We have not actually decided on the final death mechanic. I can guarantee that you will not lose experience. We are not urging to big penalties for death. But we want enough of a penalty to be there, so that death has meaning! Like to lose a little bit time, some kind of detriment... We do not currently have a [[durability]] loss (to equipment), but some kind of ... a gold cost is actually not so bad. And having the player to waste some time, that is certainly an element. Generally we kind of rely on the effect that players do not want to die. You know, you just do not want to. So there is no real reason to add a further "ding" to them for something happening that was already unfavorable to them. But we have not got our final mechanics on that, yet.''
===Fatalities===
[[Image:Mon-siegebreaker-decapitation.jpg|thumb|250px|[[Siegebreaker]] chomps.]]Besides the normal death animations, there are plans to include semi-random death animations that are keyed to special bosses, such as the amazing decapitation death [[Siegebreaker]] inflicted upon one of the Barbarians in the WWI Gameplay movie. D3 Community Manager [[Bashiok]] answered a question about this in a forum post. <ref>[http://www.diii.net/n/681638/bashiok-quick-answers in a Bashiok forum post]. - August 2009</ref>
::'''''Will there be more boss-specific fatalities like the [[Barbarian]] head bite by [[Siegebreaker]]?'''''<br>
==Hardcore Mode==
The inclusion of a [[Hardcore]] option was confirmed in August, 2010. <ref>[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/jay-wilson-interview-gamespot-au/Jay Wilson interview]- August 2010</ref>
Just as in Diablo 2, when a Hardcore character dies in Diablo 3, they stay dead. Permanently. There will be some additional bells and whistles added to HC characters on Battle.net, since the team wants a HC player to be instantly noticeable in the chat channels.
At Blizzcon 2010, we also learned that there will be Hardcore options for the [[Battle Arena]] as well. Not for the faint of heart!
==References==
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