Difference between revisions of "Chest"

Revision as of 02:52, 7 March 2012

Chests have a white glow to draw the eye in dark dungeons.

Chests in the Diablo games are clickable objects that will usually drop gold, items or other forms of loot when players click to open them.

In Diablo III chests are either the normal, white-glowing type, or special, rare, resplendent chests that have a golden glow and drop numerous items. There are no locked chests in Diablo III.

In addition to chests, there are numerous other clickable objects that may drop loot, including things like bookshelves, armor racks, weapon racks, dead bodies, tree stumps, loose floor tiles, and many others.

Game Objects

Chests, barrels, dead bodies, and many other "clickable" type of objects are found throughout the dungeons and surface areas of Diablo III. These objects and containers function much as they did in the previous games in the series; once a player spots the object he or she points at it, and with a click the character proceeds to the object and opens it up.

While there are no locked chests in Diablo III, there are trapped objects in Diablo III that may trigger explosions or other scenarios. These are often resplendent chests that will provide considerable rewards for opening, after the event is defeated.

Tester Experience

Resplendent chests glow golden.

Fans who got hands on time with the Blizzcon 2008 and Blizzcon 2009 game builds have reported a general reduction in the number of objects with a chest-like function. Thus far there aren't any of the "hidden stash" type rocks to be seen in Diablo 3, and there are generally far fewer chests. They do not litter every level, appear in every room, etc, as they do in Diablo 2. There are chests to be found in Diablo 3, but they tend to be at the corners of levels, in pre-set locations. These seem almost designed to spur players to explore the whole area, thus to reach all of the rewards.

There are also some treasure room style areas; one notable one is found in The Collapsing Tomb, a quest dungeon filled with chests, set to collapse and kill any players who remain within after 300 seconds. Retrieving a large chest is also the object of A Miner's Gold, another Act II quest.

Chests are also found on levers and different levels; all around the Canyon Rim Mines area chests are seen down on elevator-like platforms. Players must throw a switch and wait for the chest to rise up before they can open it and retrieve the loot. One example can be seen in the image to the right.

Locked Chests

One feature from Diablo 2 that will not be returning in Diablo 3 is the locked chest. Bashiok explained why in September 2008. [1]

There have been a few discussions about chests, what they meant in the previous game, and what they'll mean in Diablo III. Currently there are no locked chests, and it's not something we're looking to reintroduce for now. We have discussed varying chest quality and types, adding randomness not only to the appearance of a chest but also the value of items it may drop or possibly specifically what types of items it's guaranteed to drop. Mix it up a bit and make finding a chest exciting, but make finding a special chest something even rarer and more exciting. It could certainly make exploring the entire floor of a dungeon more compelling before moving on.

Players often complained about the locked chests in Diablo II, since they didn't necessarily drop any more or better stuff, and having to carry keys was thus a nuisance without much redeeming value. The D3 Team seems to be removing this argument before it can even begin.

Chest and retrieval lever in Act II.

Bashiok addressed locked chests again in February, 2009. [2]

Having keys that are dropped for specific uses, that have more story and questing elements tied to them are definitely possible. In a general 'designery' way Leoric's crown was essentially a key used to unlock the boss fight in the BlizzCon demo. So I don't think it's out of the question to then have a literal key be used for more quest-centric chest unlocking purposes.

That's of course completely separate from the generic dropped keys and their ability to open randomly spawned 'locked' chests. We don't currently have keys and locked chests, but... we're not completely opposed to them either.

Something I posted about a long time ago, which were just ideas being thrown around internally, is the idea of having multiple tiers of chests with subsequently lower spawn rates, and subsequently increased chances for dropping better and better items. At that point keys sort of become this unnecessary burden, because you already had the amazing luck of having the rarest chest type in the game spawn, it's probably not all that cool to then also say "Now find a key for it!"