17,263
edits
Changes
ADVERTISEMENT
From Diablo Wiki
→Seismic Slam
The barbarian lifts up one foot and brings it down with her weapon, slamming them into the ground and sending a wave of energy through the earth in a straight line. It deals damage to anything directly in front of the barbarian for a fair distance; nearly to the edge of the screen. Multiple monsters can be hit by each use, and the ground is torn and fractured by this skill.
During the WWI 2008 [[WWI_2008:_Denizens_of_Diablo_Panel#Barbarian:_Seismic_Slam|Denizens of Diablo panel]], The D3 team spoke at length about the creation of this essential skill, and how it was used to focus the design of the character.
:Barbarian: Seismic Slam
:This is a skill where the Barbarian raises his weapon overhead and slams it down into the ground. Anything in front of him, in a sort of cone-shape, gets rocked and destroyed. This skill was first skill we made for Barb, and one of the first we did in the game. Getting it right took longer than it did with most skills. We did many iterations. Animation especially. Had to make barb feel physically powerful. Traditionally we associate big bold movements with power. But if you want a game that feels fast and responsive, you want the movements to be really fast. Getting balance of fast movements and powerful feel. It's a big challenge in many ways to get that animation right.
:Once we got through all that, we didn't still didn't really like the skill. We got programming done and wasn't that great. Got effects done, and still not that great. Somehow didn't quite sing to us. Wasn't until we got sound that it was really awesome. Really fun. Key to that was faith to get through process. Once you do get through it, all the skills that come after that come much quicker. What's the Barbarian about? Look at Seismic Slam. With that he rocks the world with power. Next few skills we did almost required no communication between art and programming, since art knew what the barb was about. Knew what we were designing for, since we had a great example.
==Whirlwind==
