Diablo 3 'Follower' AI companions revealed

The Templar, Enchantress and Scoundrel--these folks are the customisable AI 'Followers' in Diablo III, replacing Diablo II's Mercs.

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Blizzard has revealed Diablo III's replacement for the 'Mercenary' AI companions from Diablo II. Diablo III's Followers will follow you (what else?) around Sanctuary, helping slay the hordes of demons and monsters in your quest for glorious loot.

Followers will come in three flavours, Templar, Enchantress and Scoundrel, or a paladin, buff-based sorceress, and ranged rogue. While Mercenaries had fixed skills, players get to choose their Follower's four abilities from a pool of twelve, letting you customise your pal to suit your playstyle. As before, Followers can be equipped with weapons, rings and amulets, though their armour will automatically improve as they level up. The computer chums also have a special item slot unavailable to players, though Blizzard hasn't yet revealed what it'll be used for.

Followers will liven up the single-player, commenting on the world and what you're up to, as well as chatting with townsfolk. However, unlike Diablo II Mercs, which followed you everywhere, they'll only be available when you're playing by yourself.

Lead content designer Kevin Martens explained to IGN that Followers "will do their own thing depending on what their build is. I'm not a huge fan of the pet bar control thing anyway. I think that the AI is actually quite good. They'll choose contextually the right thing to do."

He added, "pathfinding-wise, they'll keep up with you if you ever manage to get too far ahead of them. If you die, they'll just warp over to you."

While Mercs cost money to resurrect when they died--which they did frequently, the idiots, especially when cursed with damage reflection debuff Iron Maiden--Followers are merely knocked unconscious for a while. The timer on that "is currently 15 to 20 seconds," Martens said, and they can be revived early by players.

While Blizzard has revealed that it expects to begin external beta testing on Diablo III in the third quarter of this year, there's still no firm word on a release date. Blizzard president Mike Morhaime said earlier this week that "The development team is working hard to try and launch Diablo III this year but I want to be clear that we do not have an official release date or window yet. As always, we will not compromise the quality of the game in order to hit a window."

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  • reply
    May 13, 2011 7:00 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Diablo 3 'Follower' AI companions revealed.

    The Templar, Enchantress and Scoundrel--these folks are the customisable AI 'Followers' in Diablo III, replacing Diablo II's Mercs.

    • reply
      May 13, 2011 7:52 AM

      sexy time

    • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
      reply
      May 13, 2011 7:56 AM

      I'm glad to hear that they're solo-only. Mercs plus a bunch of players made for too much shit on the screen IMO.

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        May 13, 2011 11:48 AM

        Haha, but I loved being a Skelemancer with a aura Act 2 merc (might) with 12 skeleton warriors, 8 skele mages, 1 golem, 7-10 revives, a merc, and me. Outnumbering the enemy with minions that are stronger than the enemies they're killing really is the only way to go.

      • reply
        May 13, 2011 12:21 PM

        Called it.

      • reply
        May 13, 2011 2:46 PM

        Sounds like they're not solo-only. Just that they wont be as relevant in multiplayer... (i'm guessing they don't scale well with difficulty changes in multiplayer)

        http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/systems/followers.xml#2_4

        The followers won't be a massive part of game balance. They're there to make the single-player, normal difficulty experience feel more cooperative and to aid in enhancing the story. These factors lose some importance in multiplayer and in the higher difficulty settings of the game, and as such, the followers won't be as relevant there.

    • reply
      May 13, 2011 11:29 AM

      yeah..

      1) Deafeningly loud

      2) Eww, ugly graphics.. this isn't 2008.

      • reply
        May 13, 2011 11:33 AM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        May 13, 2011 11:45 AM

        diablo was never about the graphics

      • reply
        May 13, 2011 11:47 AM

        It's very strange that the graphics are this primitive considering Starcraft II has already been released and has far superior graphics.

        Just... boggles my mind.

        • reply
          May 13, 2011 11:49 AM

          [deleted]

          • reply
            May 13, 2011 12:44 PM

            - Models look flat and uninteresting, like they're not being properly lit. Even worse than that, it's very apparent there's no normal mapping, which contributes to the problem badly. Again, Starcraft II didn't have this problem.
            - Where are the dynamic lighting effects!? Even DIABLO 2 had dynamic lighting, and that was *ages* ago!
            - Goes hand-in-hand with the dynamic lighting, but... where are the shadows? I mean... really. One of the best things about Titan Quest was the excellent shadowing and lighting. It just feels wrong that Diablo 3, being released YEARS after Titan Quest, doesn't even match it technically.

            To be quite frank, it looks like WoW from a top-down perspective (with a slightly different, darker art style). That's not good, considering WoW looked primitive when it was released years ago.

            • reply
              May 13, 2011 1:01 PM

              lol

            • reply
              May 13, 2011 9:21 PM

              Perhaps they just disabled a lot of the advanced features until they fix them. It was D3 that had the shadows going the wrong way in an earlier vid wasn't it?

      • reply
        May 13, 2011 12:04 PM

        ugly graphics? care to elaborate? are you thinking about the shadows?

      • reply
        May 13, 2011 12:16 PM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          May 13, 2011 12:26 PM

          The graphics look great but they look "just OK" considering how long they're taking on this.

        • reply
          May 13, 2011 12:29 PM

          D3 does look good, but not in that video.

      • reply
        May 13, 2011 12:39 PM

        I agree about graphics. No realistic lighting/shadows is the biggest problem, but in general things just look lackluster. Freeze any frame and look how boring it looks. Try freezing SC2 on a boring frame when action is happening... it's difficult! I don't know/care if it's a technical issue or an art issue, but D3's graphics definitely suck compared to new games. Still gonna play the crap out of it probably, though.

        • reply
          May 13, 2011 12:45 PM

          Admittedly some videos look MUCH better, e.g.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbsODnb1VYo
          Still, feels like it's 2 years behind on graphics or something... anyway, game's still a year off from release, and the engine will probably improve slowly, and more graphical features will be turned on...

        • reply
          May 13, 2011 1:01 PM

          The game's not even complete yet. You think this is the state they're going to release it in?

          This is Blizzard we're talking about.

          • reply
            May 13, 2011 1:13 PM

            They're not going to do a complete overhaul of the rendering pipeline, if that's what you're suggesting.

      • reply
        May 13, 2011 1:34 PM

        I agree that it looked pretty terrible in that video

        • reply
          May 13, 2011 1:34 PM

          But hey Diablo II looked like shit when it was released and that didn't stop it from being awesome

          • reply
            May 13, 2011 1:47 PM

            I disagree, Diablo II had the benefit of using pre-rendered sprites for most of its visuals. While low-resolution, they were quite detailed and still hold up pretty well today (unlike, well, pretty much any of the first-generation real-time 3D games).

            Meanwhile, Diablo 3 looks dated before it's even released. That's not cool...

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              May 13, 2011 2:59 PM

              I remember Diablo 2 was only 640x480 at release... oh man what a shit storm that was. What was it, LOD expac. that added the 800x600 option?

              I think Blizzard games generally look "dated" before release to a lot of gamers... as a result of their taking an extra couple years to refine and also their goal to target lower-spec hardware.

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                May 13, 2011 3:22 PM

                Yeah, LoD added 800x600. It may have been patched into Diablo 2 for those without it at a later point, but having LoD, I never paid much attention.

      • reply
        May 13, 2011 1:42 PM

        Environment graphics are reasonable. Not really what I envisioned for the Diablo series but doesn't distract me too much.

        It's the fucking spell effects are are just horrible. Way to much rainbowed glowing shit and colored lighting for this kind of game

      • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
        reply
        May 13, 2011 3:15 PM

        Thanks for this review! Now I can save $63.59.
        That was a close one. So glad that Vogerl is on the case.

      • reply
        May 14, 2011 3:44 AM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          May 14, 2011 9:17 AM

          i'm always amazed when people say D3 looks cartoony and D2 did not. How do you do that and keep a straight face?

      • reply
        May 15, 2011 4:01 AM

        there's people playing the BETA right ?

        maybe they can tell us whether the graphics suck or not.

    • reply
      May 13, 2011 1:03 PM

      As long as one of them can carry Insight I'm good.

      I know there's no runewords in D3 :(

    • reply
      May 13, 2011 1:10 PM

      Is there a sight that does OCD breakdowns of all Diablo 3 news? I have a few things like PlanetDiablo in my RSS feed but they never seem to update. There's got to be some fan site that will go though this frame by frame and break out all the follower abilities that they whip through.

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      May 13, 2011 2:52 PM

      I am curious about the lack of dynamic lighting from spells and abilities. I'd be damn surprised if it wasn't available in game... so why is it NOT in these videos?

      And, if its not actually going to be in the shipping game, WTF?

      Several videos show realistic player/creature shadows (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbsODnb1VYo) and there is a light aura around the player... but the area just stays dark no matter how bright the spells look visually.

      The Followers one, inexplicably, does not have the same shadows as the above video I linked... Just some very hazy blob-shadows.


      Anyone here have some good info? Is it somehow not in-game? Turned off for demo videos?

      • reply
        May 13, 2011 2:59 PM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        May 13, 2011 3:04 PM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          May 13, 2011 3:07 PM

          Well, I hope its an option to turn on. I remember reading them saying that with a bunch of spells going off it was hard to tell what was going on... but, given a lot of people play solo, seems an odd thing to just throw away entirely.

          • reply
            May 13, 2011 3:08 PM

            **seems an odd thing completely crazy to just throw away entirely.

      • reply
        May 13, 2011 7:25 PM

        Pre-release/pre-beta Blizzard videos always look like shit compared to the released product. Fuck, even WoW Expansion beta videos released by Blizzard look like shit compared to the live game. It's part of Blizzard's way, apparently.

        ... yet people haven't figured that out yet.

        • reply
          May 14, 2011 2:59 AM

          Even WoW? Yeah because WoW is so old, people must have noticed. Or not.

          Besides, not everyone plays it. Grow up. :)

        • reply
          May 14, 2011 7:46 AM

          WoW looked like shit at RELEASE. It STILL looks like shit to this day.

          I don't think that's a very good example...

    • reply
      May 15, 2011 11:11 AM

      It doesn't look awesome, but man... It's still a pc game. I'm sure there will be a fair amount of graphical options to toggle. It doesn't even look horrible there.

      Plus, again, I'm sure this one isn't going to be "streamlined" or "more focused" either. So many games have been coming across as bland interactive novels with horrible stories. I'm looking at you Bioware.

      I'm just looking forward to mechanics that I can really get into. Skills and items that make a difference enough to change your tactics. Not just different skins for your person or weapons.

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