![\"The](\"\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/diablo3_barbarian_balcksmith_188237653.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/p>\nDiablo III game director Jay Wilson unveiled a video and gave a presentation detailing some new Diablo III features at Gamescom 2010. The major news to come from the presentation was that as players travel through the game world, they will be accompanied throughout by a caravan, which somewhat replaces the traditional central town location.<\/p>\n
During stopovers with the caravan troop, the player will find NPC quest givers, other important NPCs and the Artisans.
There will be three Artisans – a blacksmith, jeweller and mystic – each providing a unique crafting service. The blacksmith handles armour, and can add sockets to items. The jeweller crafts gems, amulets, and rings, and can also remove gems from sockets and combine gems to upgrade their quality. The mystic creates wands, scrolls, potions, charms, runes, magical weapons and can enchant items.<\/p>\n
To make this more than a mobile version of the shops found in Diablo I and Diablo II, the artisans will have to be discovered, and then won over by the player. Each of the artisans has their own background story and line of quests, which make up part of the main quest. Wilson indicated that the player should have access to all three by the end of act II.<\/p>\n
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The Barbarian peruses the blacksmith artisan’s stall<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Artisans require component parts and a bit of gold to craft items – components and gold which are dropped from hellish minions or discovered throughout the game world. As the artisans craft items from components delivered by the player, so they will level up. At higher levels, rare and valuable materials will be needed to craft items worthy of the players level, which has the effect of slowing the artisan levelling process. Artisans cannot create items higher than their level.<\/p>\n The player will also be able to break items down into their original components, with the help of the blacksmith. In this way items whose usefulness has been out-levelled can be turned back into something new and powerful.<\/p>\n Inventory<\/strong><\/p>\n The inventory system has been revised. Items will either take up one or two inventory slots. Anything from daggers to full plate armour will occupy two slots, with items such as gems, amulets, rings, potions, and scrolls taking up one slot.<\/p>\n A peek at the new Diablo III inventory system<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The overall inventory capacity will be considerably larger than that of Diablo II. The player’s stash will start out relatively small, but can be upgraded by splashing out some gold. Wilson went so far as to say that, as far as he is concerned, the inventory system has been finalised and won’t be revised again. <\/p>\n Death<\/strong><\/p>\n Another change is the death system. When players die they will no longer have to retrieve their body and equipment – they will respawn at the last checkpoint, with some damage to their equipment and a bit of gold missing.<\/p>\n Wilson explained this decision by pointing out that the majority of players whose characters die during multiplayer games, have already completed the game. A problem on Battle.net was that players would simply exit and then re-enter the game, their bodies conveniently appearing in town. To end this kind of abuse and potential game ruining, the system was scrapped altogether.<\/p>\n Hardcore mode has been confirmed – characters only have one shot in this mode as death is permanent.<\/p>\n Rumours laid to rest<\/strong><\/p>\n Wilson quashed the rumour that the player character’s appearance would change depending on their chosen skills. This will not be the case. Likewise, the rumour that Act IV of the game was not even under development was also deemed false. Wilson stated that each of the four acts of the game were in full development.<\/p>\n Wilson would not reveal any hints of the fifth playable class, nor a release date. Below is the Diablo III Gamescom video showing off the caravan and the Artisans at work.<\/p>\n \n![\"Diablo](\"\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/diablo_3_inventory_252727527.jpg\" "\\"Diablo")
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