==Diablo III Quests==
The [[D3 Team]] wants to improve on how quests were handled in [[Diablo II]]. They want the major quests to be interesting, important, and plot-driven. Many of these quests will be character-specific; your character won't (always) just be an errand boy and the quest won't just be something minor; it will advance the [[story]].
People will turn on you…you’re never quite sure what is going to happen. We’re adding all those random elements all over the world. There is way more quest content overall than Diablo II, period. Also, I think we wanted to do a much better job on the storytelling aspects, not just the cinematics, which are fantastic, but also in the storytelling itself, like more twists and turns, more interesting quests, more variety of experiences. That’s what we spent a lot of time on, and making the co-op nature of it better as well.</blue>
==Known Quests==
[[Image:Follower_interaction.jpg|thumb|200px|[[Barbarian]] helping [[followers]] on the [[Escort Mission]] quest.]]
All known quests were researched in the Blizzcon 2008 and 2009 playable demos. Details of these quests may change in the final game.
Click the quest names below to read full articles on each quest with many more details and screenshots.
===Blizzcon 2008 Quests===
All these quests were located in [[Tristram]] or the dungeons below the ruined town. The base camp at Tristram was quite small and inhabited by only two [[NPCs]], neither of whom were merchants. It's expected that the full town of Tristram will be quite a bit larger. (Or this base camp might be where new characters begin the game, and they only reach the full Tristram after completing these introductory quests.)
===Blizzcon 2009 Quests===
All of these quests were located in the deserts of Act 2, somewhere in the mid-section of the act. Characters started out just beyond the walls of [[Caldeum]], and could not return to the city. The designers revealed that this was a special fix just for the demo, since players would have seen a great deal of the game story in Caldeum, and the didn't want to reveal that much of it yet.
Quest names are tentative, and may change in the final game.
===BlizzCon 2010 Quests=== The 2010 BlizzCon demo had very few quests, compared to previous years, and the quests that were there were found in every game; they were not randomized at all, and only the three core storyline quests were ever present. This may be a sign that random quests have been largely removed from the game, or it might just have been a result of the developers removing extraneous material from the demo, to streamline the play under the tight 15-minute time limit players were allowed. <blue><font color="#FFFFFF"> ==Quest Design and Theory==
[[Leonard Boyarsky]] is the main story guy on the [[D3 Team]] and while he isn't the only person who makes up quests, he heads up that department in the development of Diablo 3. Leonard was asked how quests are designed in an October 2009 interview. [http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Hellforge/Diablo-III-The-Lore-of-the-World-An-Interview-with-Leonard-Boyarsky/page1]
::'''''<blue><font color="#FFFFFF">Hellforge:''' How do you come up with ideas for the creation of quests in Diablo III. Do you start with simple quest concepts and build around them with storyline elements or...?</font><br>::'''Leonard Boyarsky: '''It goes both ways. What we do, the way we start off, is that we first create the storyline of the game and then we kind of iterate on that a lot as well as once we start building the game and putting quests in we refine those. Our artists, our level designers, everybody might have ideas about quests that would be more like simple adventure concepts or simple quest concepts that you’re talking about. And then we’ll put lore into them. Sometimes, we just have lore and we say to the level guys or some the gameplay guys, “Hey, how best do you think we can show this?” So it really goes both ways, any which way.<br>
::There’s been times when we really wanted to hit certain points and it wasn’t really working because you know, it was too complex for the way the game is working or the way the story is rolling out so you know it’s really just an iterative process like the other stuff we do.</blue>
There may also be rarer quests, ones that appear very seldom, giving a special surprise to players who luck into them. [[Leonard Boyarsky]] elaborated on how random quests will be integrated in an October 2009 interview. [http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Hellforge/Diablo-III-The-Lore-of-the-World-An-Interview-with-Leonard-Boyarsky/page1]
:: <blue>We’re doing -– there’s a main storyline that is, parts of it might be randomized depending on the area, depending on what the quests are, depending on what the actual objective is. But apart from the main quest, most of our other content is randomized, so from game to game it will be completely different. I can’t give you any kind of percentage because we’re still playing with those numbers, but that’s really the way we built this game is so that we can have a lot of randomized content, including story elements and including quests.</blue>
The Diablo 3 team has brought up quests as one way to solve the [[end game]] problems, where characters wind up just "running" the same bosses over and over again. The team hopes to allow/require more variety in gameplay by offering a variety of quests in the late game, giving players more viable activities to engage in. Julian Love addressed this question in an October 2009 interview. [http://www.diablo-source.com/index.php?cmd=article&sec=news&act=view&id=354]
::'''''DS:''' <blue><font color="#FFFFFF">I think Jay hinted during Blizzcon that there might be updated quests to keep higher level content exciting to keep people coming back and playing again. </font><br>::'''Julian Love:''' It's not so much actually high level versus low level. I think we have a plan that facilitates high level content. What I think you're really getting at there is replayability, and what that gets down to is the way we're exercising randomness within the game. We've put a lot of focus towards what kinds of randomness are really beneficial in supporting replayability and what things are just, heh, not all that important or not all that awesome. One of the things that we have in the system that we have is something that we call - well, we have a really technical name for it -- [[sub-scenes]].
::What it comes down to is we can sort of like create a hole in the world that's like a socket that we can fill with just about anything that we want. It could be empty ground with a bunch of monsters on it, it could be a giant canyon that a really elaborate scripted event happens, it could turn into a caravan walking across the desert that you have an escort quest on. The point being is that this hole in the earth can randomly, at any time become something totally different. It could even be a doorway to a whole new dungeon that you've never seen before. So, the fact that the world is able to change things up and actually deliver different events, stories and quests is what's really going to make the game a lot more replayable at the both the low and high ends.</font>
==Quest Interface==
[[Image:Q-the-skeleton-king1.jpg|thumb|125px|Blizzcon 2008 display.]]
[[File:Quest-window2.jpg|left|thumb|150px|Blizzcon 2009 display.]]
The quest interface remains under has changed repeatedly during development, as evidenced by how much it changed between Blizzcon 2008 and 2009, with further major changes seen in 2010. The 2008 most recent version was more ornate and stylizedseen at Blizzcon 2010, and filled up it was reportedly much more of the visible screen. In 2009 the interface was far simpler, and looked like a scaled back version of {{iw|quests Diablo 2's quest}} window. The very plain 2009 version was clearly a work same in progress, since it was hardly large enough to even display the few quests available in that demo build. In the 2009 build, the main quest was to find [[Alcarnus]], and that quest always showed on top of the pyramid of potential quests. Below the Alcarnus quest were two two other quests, which were different each game. There seemed to be 4 or 5 possible quests for those two slots. Below those two were four other quests, which were related to/contained within them. This third row of quests were generally the most simple, "Fed-Ex" style of quests. Players had to five stranded NPC soldiers and fight off the [[Lacuni]] that were attacking them, or locate an abandoned wagon and retrieve the treasure. These were simple, but debuted in July 2011 at a media event at least there were none of the dreaded, "Go fetch me 8 skins of the desert monster" type quests that RPGs such as [[WoW]] have made so infamousBlizzard Irvine.
When a character performed an action that changed Se the state of a quest, such as receiving a clue from an NPC, finding a quest item, or finishing a quest entirely, a little ! icon popped up over the belt interface. That let the plaeyr know to open the quest window, where new info about the quest would display. That image is seen to the right.[[File:Quest-prompt1.jpg|thumb|350px|Quest notification activated.window]]article for full details.
(All of these images were taken from cell phone camera recordings of the game screens, mostly from the 2009 PAX convention, hence their low quality.)
==Quest Items==
===[[Quest Items===]] were initially objects like any others, that players could pick up and hold in them in the [[inventory]]. As in Diablo II, such items were given out or found on quests, and were required to complete them. None of the quest items in Diablo III were going to be equipable or usable; but players had to hold onto them to complete quests.
One change made This changed during development . For a time there was a tab on the location of inventory pack that held quest itemsseparately from regular equipment. In Diablo II these were stored This feature was eventually dumped as being too complicated, and in the inventoryfinal game quest items are held invisibly, unseen and "used" up when you completed a quest, at which point they vanishedinaccessible to players. You had It is now impossible to have drop or lose them for the quest though; if , and you dropped need not pick them up or lost the item then you had to redo the whole quest to get a new onetouch them in any way.
This system carried over into Diablo III, though as of 2008 there was a special "Quest Items" tab Bashiok confirmed this in your character's inventoryOctober 2010:[http://diablo. Quest items were automatically placed in that inventory space, from which you could not remove themincgamers. (Though they would vanish once you completed com/blog/comments/blue-on-the -new-paper-doll-and-quest or abandoned it.) The utility of this window was questionable, since after all, if you couldn't pick up or use the -items -in any way, what was the point in being able to hold them at all?-inventory/]
It was thus not a surprise when that aspect of <blue>Quest items are now stored directly within the game was switched around, as Bashiok reported in October 2010:quest itself. They don’t take up any [http://diabloinventory] space at all.incgamers.com/blog/comments</blue-on-the-new-paper-doll-and-quest-items-in-inventory/]>
<blue>Quest Besides the quest items that are used only for quests, there are now stored directly within several interface items granted by quests that players hold in special spaces in their inventory and use throughout the game. The first one revealed was the [[Nephalem Cube]], an object used to [[salvage]] items for the materials required for [[crafting]]. The [[blacksmith]] gives this cube to the player as an early game quest itself. They don’t take up any space at allreward.</blue>
The quest items may still be viewed, but they are shown via the quest window interface, not the paper doll/inventory.
===Quests Window 2010 Blizzcon===
[[File:Artisan-training2.jpg|thumb|175px|The Artisan Window.]]
The quests window was much upgraded in Blizzcon 2010. Though there are no images of it yet, it was identical to the Artisan interface in form. The same size window, with buttons down the left side and the main information displayed on the right.
The tabs listed things like Quests, Lore, NPCs, Recent Changes, and other options, most of which were not yet populated. It appeared that the finished interface would list story and background tidbits about everything; all of the quests, NPCs, items, monsters, and more; functioning as a sort of in-game encyclopedia. How much of those options will actually be fleshed out remains to be seen; the interface and functions were clearly newly-added to the game as of the Blizzcon October 2010 demo.
'''Other Diablo III Interface elements:'''
* [[Interface|The Belt Interface]].
* [[Skills and traits window]]
** [[Skill tree]].
* [[Artisans|The Artisans window]].
[[Leonard Boyarsky]] elaborated on this in an October 2009 interview. [http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Hellforge/Diablo-III-The-Lore-of-the-World-An-Interview-with-Leonard-Boyarsky/page1]
::<blue>The lore book that we’ve been putting in has been really popular. People like the ability to hear background stuff while they run around killing things as opposed to having to stop to read. So<br>...we put in some background of Leoric, we’re pretty surprised by his journal and Lachdanan who are characters that because people generally split into two different kinds of classes: the people who care you’ve heard about the lore and didn’t really meet in their human forms in the people who could care lessfirst Diablo, but we’re finding that with the lore books so you get to hear their voices and their stories from their point of view. It’s just that I think people have are really responded to them. I’m assuming that’s because kind of interested in that especially if they’ve played the games all the audio portion of it where they don’t have to stop and sit and read it doesn’t cut into way from the action, basicallyfirst one.</blue>
Like, we put in some background of Leoric, his journal and Lachdanan who are characters that you’ve heard about and didn’t really meet in their human forms in the first Diablo, so you get to hear their voices and their stories from their point of view. It’s just that I think people are really kind of interested in that especially if they’ve played the games all the way from the first one.
==Quests as Story==
[[Image:Wizard_vs_King_Leoric.jpg|right|150px|thumb|The [[Wizard]] meets [[King Leoric]].]]
The [[D3 Team]] is trying to make Diablo III much more [[story]]-driven. They want the characters to be individuals and to be important figures in the world; not just interchangeable errand boys, as they usually were in Diablo II. [[Leonard Boyarsky]] talked about this in an interview in September, 2008.[http://www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/diabloiii2.php]
::<blue>The areas of story and character development will now be in focus, and the team wants the players to feel like they are having an effect on the world, which can also affect the character. They don't want the game to be ''either'' action or RPG, the two can mix. The story elements just need to be more engaging "without interfering with the hack-and-slash gameplay". It's possible for players to opt out if they don't care about it, "but if you do care about it, the story will bring a whole extra level of involvement to the game experience," Boyarsky said. As few as possible quests will be mandatory, and instead having a lots of voluntary quests and random quests if you want to.</blue>
The team is also "doing a lot with scripted sequences and books that you can read in the game, but once again, you can completely avoid these things if they don't interest you."
Specifics about quests related to the lore/story of the game have not yet been revealed but it was discussed in the [[WWI_2008:_D3_Lore_and_Environmental_Art_Panel|WWI 2008 Lore and Environmental Art Panel]], when a fan asked if there would be quests to obtain special items, such as the [[Horadric Cube]]. The team at the panel said they "look into the story and lore and we want that to drive the gameplay and quests."==Class-Specific Quests==
The developers considered including Class-specific quests, but ultimately rejected the concept for practical reasons. Such quests wouldn't have worked in a co-op friendly game like Diablo III since players can join and leave games at any time, and this would have broken class-specific quests.
==ClassThis was a hard decision to make, and the developers had to scratch long-Specific Quests==held plans to include such quests in the game.
There will be quests in the game that are only open to particular classes, and there will be common quests that play out differently for each class. Most of this will be done through lore, story, and NPC dialogue, but details have not yet been finalized. Jay Wilson spoke on this issue from Blizzcon 2009. [http://www.gamingshogun.com/Article/5130/Interview_with_Diablo_III_Game_Director_Jay_Wilson.html]
::'''''GS) '''<blue><font color="#FFFFFF">Can you tell us anymore about the class-specific quest system in the game?</font><br>Jay Wilson::'''JW)''' Not a a lot but I can tell you we do intend to do some class quests and mostly what we want to do is give [[story]] arcs to the characters. We don't want them to be kind of nameless...I think we've reached a point where we are trying to build a universe and a universe is filled with characters. And so a lot of what we want to do with the class quests is support that idea to build characters.
<font color="#FFFFFF">::'''''GS) '''So when you start the game will the different classes begin in the same place or will you start at some sort of origin level to setup your character?</font><br>Jay Wilson::'''JW)''' Originally we wanted to do an origin - we wanted to actually have the characters start in their own location but it was a monumental cost for us to do it so we decided that we would have everyone start in the same place. We do try to set the characters up though. We have a little event early on that's going to try to setup where the characters come from and what their mindset is.</blue>
Jay Wilson spoke on this again in a November 2009 interview. [http://www.diablofans.com/topic/16947-diablofans-exclusive-jay-wilson/]
<blue><font color="#FFFFFF">DF::'''''DiabloFans: '''Will there be class specific quests in the game? If so, can you explain how they would work?</font><br>::'''Jay Wilson: '''We are still discussing whether or not we would like to include class-specific quests in the game mainly because of the simple fact that it may not really fit in with the fast-paced play-style known to the Diablo series. While this is definitely something we would like to consider, we just haven't agreed on how just yet.
::However, we would like to do something in regards to character specificity. We are looking into having different dialogues and experiences for the same quest or interaction for each of the classes. Each character will react differently and have different responses for different scenarios. For example, the Barbarian may do or say one thing in response to what an NPC has to say, whereas a Witch Doctor will treat the encounter in a complete opposite manner.
==Scripted Events==
[[Image:Mon-thousand-summon2.jpg|thumb|right|250px|[[Thousand Pounder]] being summoned.]]
[[Jay Wilson]] talked about some of the scripted events seen in the BlizzCon demo in an interview in December, 2008.[http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?pager.offset=2&cId=3172030&p=]
::<blue>We had a lot of [scripted events] in our BlizzCon build. [In one of them, there was] a series of ghosts at an altar who were seeking an object that you'd get to prove your worth. If you did get it, then they would test you by having big powerful monsters attack you -- and if you passed, you got a nice reward. Another one was coming across some fellow adventurers stranded in a dungeon who'd need your help to get out.</blue>
Several of these scripted events will be used in Diablo III. Both as the mandatory quests as well as the optional, random and encounter/adventure type quests.
There were even more potential events, quests, and adventures in the 2009 demo build, as [[Julian Love]] revealed in an interview from the show. [http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/pc/games/156898.Diablo-III/features/133759.20090831.BlizzCon-Diablo-III-devs-discuss-design-decisions-direction-depth-drops/]
::<blue>I think in the demo that we have here, there’s just over 30 different things that can happen in all the spots. Whether that’s too high or too low will be partly based on what feedback we’re going to see from the people that actually got a chance to play it here, and based on what we feel like. We know how we feel about it right now but we want to compare that to what the players who have a chance to play feel, and then we’re going to try to look at that again. So this is one big area, what a smaller area or one that’s more linear has is also yet to be determined. But certainly way more things will happen in one playing area than happened in Diablo II.</blue>
==Adventures==
[[Image:NPCs in danger.jpg|right|thumb|200px|[[NPC]]s in need of rescuing from [[Zombie]]s.]]
Adventures are mini-quests, scripted events or semi-random occurrences that aren't necessarily tied to the overall plot. The terminology has evolved over time, and "Adventures" now seem to be called [[sub-scenes]][http://www.diablo-source.com/index.php?cmd=article&sec=news&act=view&id=354], but the concept is identical. Sub-scenes are small, self-contained events, more like randomly-encountered scenarios than full on quests. The [[D3 Team]] first described them in the [[WWI_2008:_D3_Design_Fundamentals_Panel|WWI 2008 Design Fundamentals Panel]].
::<blue>Jay Wilson: You could come across a particular area in the outdoor world with a variety of possible elements in it. One game it could be a old abandoned house to explore. Maybe it's infested with crazy [[undead]] guys, and as you clean it out you learn the story of the family who lived there. Another game that same area might instead have a clearing where a cult is performing a summoning ritual. Another game might feature a caravan that needs protection from marauding monsters, or escort to the nearest town. Another game you might find a boss monster there. Or you might just get random monsters."</blue>
This concept was seen in action in the Act 2 desert at Blizzcon 2009, when some fans had a chance to play through the same area in multiple games. One time a desert region would be empty, the next it would have a ruined building with a horde of monsters inside of it, and another it would have a mini-quest to find a ruined wagon. The concept is to add randomization even within the randomized dungeons, and to change up the play style. [http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?pager.offset=2&cId=3172030&p=1]
::<blue>The biggest goal we have with these is that we want to change what the player is doing. Whenever you can basically take the core game and make the player play it in a slightly different way, it makes the game a lot more interesting and keeps it from being tedious. You go from "I'm killing monsters aimlessly" to "I'm now killing monsters to protect this thing." That's easily a more interesting scenario, because it's different than what you were doing, and that's our main goal with that.'' =Class-Specific Quests=During the game reveal in mid-2008, the D3 Team talked about class-specific quests at the [[WWI_2008:_Denizens_of_Diablo_Panel|Denizens of Diablo panel]]. ::We'll also have various class quests that will be very interesting. Each class will have different views of the story that will play out through conversations. Bottom line beyond all this is it gives us a way to put the hero at the center of the story. Your hero can drive the story as opposed to being errand boy. You can decide best thing to do. Villages can be cowardly, you can suggest we need to go do this, not just me. I can take control because no one else will. Puts you at centre of the action. Makes char have more of a hero feel. This was taken to mean class-specific quests at the time, but in retrospect it seems like nothing more than some class-specific NPC dialogues. Those are known to be in the game; [[Captain Rumford]] showed them with his different remarks to the Barbarian, Wizard, and Witch Doctor at the start of the 2008 Blizzcon demo. Like Rumford, all the important NPCs have different dialogues for and reactions to the different characters, and these are planned to be impactful; they're not just {{iw|Gheed Gheed}} sounding worried when he first speaks to a Necromancer, before proceeding to treat that class exactly like anyone else.</blue>
==How Many Quests?==
The [[D3 Team]] has said that D3 will be about the same size as D2, but that it will have many more quests. This total presumably includes the smaller adventures, as well as main plot-driving quests. Jay Wilson commented on this in an August 2008 interview. [http://www.diii.net/n/687810/jay-wilson-from-leipzig-6]
::<blue>We believe Diablo 2 was a very good size, even with the number of quests. In any case, more than in Diablo 2, Diablo 3 will have more quests and many of them have a much stronger tie to the game. Compare this to Diablo 2, where quests generally came in 6 per Act, but in Diablo 3 we have no quest limit. So we can continue to insert as many quests as we like, until we feel that we've got a good amount and there aren't too many. We want to concentrate on quests that are really fun and contribute to the game. If I have to come up with a number, I'd say there's probably twice as many quests, but I wouldn't nail it down like that. It could still be more or less at this point.</blue>
More recently, Julian Love was asked spoke about this at Blizzcon 2009. [http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/pc/games/156898.Diablo-III/features/133759.20090831.BlizzCon-Diablo-III-devs-discuss-design-decisions-direction-depth-drops/]
::'''''<blue><font color="#FFFFFF">GamePlanet:''' Will there be a maximum nubmer number of quests?</font>::'''Julian Love:''' Probably, but it's undetermined at this point. I think in the demo that we have here, there's just over 30 different things that can happen in all the spots. Whether that's too high or too low will be partly based on what feedback we're going to see from the people that actually got a chance to play it here, and based on what we feel like. We know how we feel about it right now but we want to compare that to what the players who have a chance to play feel, and then we're going to try to look at that again. So this is one big area, what a smaller area or one that's more linear has is also yet to be determined. But certainly way more things will happen in one playing area than happened in Diablo II.</blue>
==Quest Conversations==
[[Image:Injured_villager_talks_to_Wizard.jpg|right|thumb|150px|[[Wizard]] talks to [[Injured Villager]], who starts [[The Skeleton King]] quest.]]
[[NPC]] conversations in Diablo III are shown in the normal game screen. The camera merely zooms in a bit. The conversation is ended and the screen returns to normal if you click anywhere outside of the dialogue tree, or press the space bar or Esc key.
When the game debuted at the [[WWI 2008|WWI event]] in June 2008, NPC conversations were portrayed in a special pop up window display which you can see below. This approach was abandoned between the June premiere and [[BlizzCon 2008|BlizzCon]] in Octobersoon after, since the D3 Team felt that it took players out of the flow of the game.
[[Image:Npc-interaction.jpg|center|thumb|600px|Early concept for NPC dialogue; now removed. The [[Barbarian]] speaks with [[Deckard Cain]].]]
