Halls of the Dead
The Halls of the Dead is a UI-based interface that allows you to see your dead Hardcore characters via your in-game profile. This UI will be similar to the in-game Armory and will display the characters with the equipment, attributes, skills, runestones, and other stats at their time of death. [1]
We have plans to create a Hall of the Dead where your can view your deceased HC characters, and you will probably also be able to view fun and interesting statistics about them.
The dead character will not[2]take up one of your ten live character slots. Although not much else is known, it has been confirmed that the dead characters will not be able to be taken into a game to walk around and look at. [3]
...but it's probably just going to be in the UI. Maybe someday it'll be a big awesome hall!
Hardcore is not implemented in the Diablo III Beta test, so there has not yet been a sighting of the Halls of the Dead.
Making the Cut?
The Diablo III development team has been cutting features as of early 2012, presumably to meet some kind of release date that occurs before computers become sentient, making programs ironic. There is a possibility that the Halls of the Dead will not appear in the final game, per Bashiok[4]:
[The Halls of the Dead] was a wish list feature we mentioned at BlizzCon right? Don’t know if it’ll make it. It’s on the list.
Diablo II Hardcore Graveyard
Diablo II Hardcore did not have any such feature, and dead Hardcore characters continued to occupy one of the eight slots on a Battle.net account. This forced players to delete dead characters eventually to clear our space, which could be a sentimental moment for a player.
Players went to lengths to record the existence of their Hardcore character. Fansite Diabloii.net [5]launched a Hardcore Graveyard in mid-2000, just weeks after the game's release. It presented screenshots plus captions that shared various useful details about the tragedy:
- Character Name, Class, Level, and Realm/SP:
- Location of Death:
- Cause of Death:
- Details:
- Greatest Regret:
- Famous Last Words:
- What Could Have Prevented This Tragedy:
In the years since then, players have maintained other such graveyards.
References
- ↑ Dead HC Characters - Blizzard, 19/10/11
- ↑ Halls of the Dead forum post - Blizzard, December 11, 2011
- ↑ YouTube Q&A Video - Jay Wilson Blizzard, 23/10/11
- ↑ [1] -Bashiok Twitter, 7/2/2012
- ↑ Hardcore Graveyard on Diabloii.net - Archive.org page from August 2000, retrieved January 17. 2012