Stone of Recall - Revision history

Elly at 06:45, 31 January 2012

2012-01-31T06:45:04Z

Elly: archived & references

2012-01-30T05:14:20Z

archived & references

Flux: /* Development Cycle */

2012-01-29T08:09:49Z

‎Development Cycle

Flux at 07:07, 29 January 2012

2012-01-29T07:07:14Z

Flux at 22:38, 28 January 2012

2012-01-28T22:38:22Z

Flux at 01:28, 24 January 2012

2012-01-24T01:28:01Z

Flux at 01:24, 24 January 2012

2012-01-24T01:24:50Z

Flux: /* Diablo 3 Town Portals */

2011-10-01T15:30:26Z

‎Diablo 3 Town Portals

Risingred: filling out/image

2011-09-09T22:58:22Z

filling out/image

Flux at 21:33, 9 September 2011

2011-09-09T21:33:03Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 06:45, 31 January 2012
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	{{Archived\|January 2012\|~~Removed from the game~~}}	+	{{Archived\|January 2012\|[[Town Portal]]}}

	Details about the Stone of Recall prior to its removal have been saved for posterity.		Details about the Stone of Recall prior to its removal have been saved for posterity.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[File:Stone-of-recall-icon.jpg|left|thumb|80px|The Stone]]
 The Stone of Recall was permanently removed from the game during late-phase development. It was last present during the [[Diablo III Beta]] and was removed from the game in the Beta version 10 patch, on January 23, 2012.
@@ Line 10: / Line 16: @@
 [[File:Stone-of-recall-tooltip1.jpg|thumb|400px|The Scroll of Recall tooltip.]]
-Diablo III initially featured town portal scrolls much as those in Diablo 1 and Diablo 2. During early development, the [[D3 Team]] decided that this feature was too easily exploited as an escape from danger, and removed it. Jay Wilson explained this decision in a 2010 interview with Gamespot. [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/jay-wilson-interview-gamespot-au/]
+Diablo III initially featured town portal scrolls much as those in Diablo 1 and Diablo 2. During early development, the [[D3 Team]] decided that this feature was too easily exploited as an escape from danger, and removed it. Jay Wilson explained this decision in a 2010 interview with Gamespot.<ref> [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/jay-wilson-interview-gamespot-au/ Jay Wilson Interview] - Gamespot.au, 21/8/2010</ref>
 <blue>Town Portals are gone. We found them to be a crippling combat exploit. We found that while they had some cooperative uses, they tended to split players up a lot. As soon as players wanted to go back to town they did, and then they had to figure out how to get back to their party.  We don’t want players to ever be split up.
@@ Line 18: / Line 24: @@
 For a time, players could only return to town via [[Waypoints]]. To ameliorate that travel difficulty, the designers introduced various features including [[NPC]] [[merchants]] located in the dungeons, as well as the [[Scroll of Wealth]] (which evolved into the [[Cauldron of Jordan]]) to allow instant item selling from anywhere, as well as the [[Nephalem Cube]] to facilitate salvaging of items from the dungeon.
-Jay Wilson commented on this subject during an interview at Gamescom 2010: [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/jay-wilson-interview-gamona/]
+Jay Wilson commented on this subject during an interview at Gamescom 2010: <ref>[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/jay-wilson-interview-gamona/ Jay Wilson Interview] - Gamona.de, 20/8/2010</ref>
 <blue>We’ve put in several things to offset the lack of Town Portals. The most obvious are more frequent Waypoints. These give players more opportunities to return to go back to town. We’ve also added salvaging to let players break items down into small parts that stack up in your inventory. We’ve also added a Scroll of Wealth that allows you to sell items right on location.</blue>
-Those other features remained in, but eventually the need for a speedy way to return to town became too pressing to ignore, and in 2011 the developers revealed that the Town Portal function was returning the to game in a new form. [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/town-portals-return....-sorta/]
+Those other features remained in, but eventually the need for a speedy way to return to town became too pressing to ignore, and in 2011 the developers revealed that the Town Portal function was returning the to game in a new form. <ref>[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/town-portals-return....-sorta/ Town Portals Return] - Blizzard, 28/6/2011</ref>
 <blue>We’ve always been trying to see if we can create a better system than town portals, making waypoints the main travel back to town mechanic. But, it’s looking like it’s just simply more fun and a quality-of-life-nicety to be able to jump back to town from anywhere even if waypoints are all over the place. Plus it’s not really that hard to avoid the few pitfalls that TPs in Diablo II had.</blue>
@@ Line 32: / Line 38: @@
 Unlike the Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 system, there was no blue portal created in the dungeon; characters were simply warped directly to town. In town a blue portal appeared, which would take the player back to the exact spot from which they'd departed, if they passed through it.
-This system seemed to be the final design, until in early 2012 the developers revealed that the Stone of Recall, along with the Nephalem Cube and Cauldron of Jordan had all been removed from the game. The Stone of Recall changed the least, as a Town Portal icon, with an identical function to the Stone of Recall, was added to the belt interface
+This system seemed to be the final design, until in early 2012 the developers revealed that the Stone of Recall, along with the [[Nephalem Cube]] and [[Cauldron of Jordan]] had all been removed from the game. The Stone of Recall changed the least, as a Town Portal icon, with an identical function to the Stone of Recall, was added to the belt interface
 ==Blue Portals in Diablo III==
@@ Line 52: / Line 59: @@
-==References==
+=References=
-<div class="references-small">
+<font size="-3">
 <references/>
-</div>
+</font>

@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 <blue>Town Portals are gone. We found them to be a crippling combat exploit. We found that while they had some cooperative uses, they tended to split players up a lot. As soon as players wanted to go back to town they did, and then they had to figure out how to get back to their party.  We don’t want players to ever be split up.
+<br>
 But the big thing is that Town Portals were a combat exploit. When players can essentially portal out of any situation, it makes it almost impossible for the designers to create a game that’s challenging and compelling, or a world that you’re really immersed in. To replace the need for town portals we’ve added salvaging and we have a couple of other systems that we haven’t shown yet that help with that. The goal is for you to not really miss them. </blue>
@@ Line 33: / Line 33: @@
 This system seemed to be the final design, until in early 2012 the developers revealed that the Stone of Recall, along with the Nephalem Cube and Cauldron of Jordan had all been removed from the game. The Stone of Recall changed the least, as a Town Portal icon, with an identical function to the Stone of Recall, was added to the belt interface
 ==Blue Portals in Diablo III==

@@ Line 66: / Line 66: @@
 [[Category:Magic]]
 [[Category:Lore]]
-[[category:archive]]
+[[category:archives]]
 {{Template:Items navbox}}

@@ Line 66: / Line 66: @@
 [[Category:Magic]]
 [[Category:Lore]]
+[[category:archive]]
 {{Template:Items navbox}}

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-[[File:Stone-of-recall-icon.jpg]]
+[[File:Stone-of-recall-icon.jpg|left|thumb|80px|The Stone]]
 The Stone of Recall was permanently removed from the game during late-phase development. It was last present during the [[Diablo III Beta]] and was removed from the game in the Beta version 10 patch, on January 23, 2012.
@@ Line 10: / Line 9: @@
 ==Development Cycle==
-[[File:Stone-of-recall-tooltip1.jpg|thumb400px|The Scroll of Recall tooltip.]]
+[[File:Stone-of-recall-tooltip1.jpg|thumb|400px|The Scroll of Recall tooltip.]]
 Diablo III initially featured town portal scrolls much as those in Diablo 1 and Diablo 2. During early development, the [[D3 Team]] decided that this feature was too easily exploited as an escape from danger, and removed it. Jay Wilson explained this decision in a 2010 interview with Gamespot. [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/jay-wilson-interview-gamespot-au/]
@@ Line 38: / Line 37: @@
 ==Blue Portals in Diablo III==
 There were numerous red portals in Diablo II, to take players between distant locations that weren't appropriate for Waypoint travel.  There were also town portals cast by NPCs that players could not use, such as those the rescued Barbarian NPCs cast in Act Five.
 These types of portals do not seem to be a feature in Diablo III, other than the ones players see in town, after returning via a town portal. Players can not cast blue portals in the dungeons for other players to use, and while the [[Barbarian]] cast such a portal for the use of [[Deckard Cain]] in the first gameplay movie, released with the June 2008 Diablo III announcement, that feature/function was evolved away from over the course of development.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-A '''Stone of Recall''' is an object held in a character's interface that enables easy returns to town. It is not a [[Town Portal]], though it largely replaces the function of that item, which is not otherwise found in Diablo III.
+[[File:Stone-of-recall-icon.jpg]]
-The Stone of Recall works by transporting a player from the dungeon to the Waypoint in town. There is no portal cast; the player simply uses the object, and after a lengthy ten-second casting time (implemented to prevent this item from being an easy way to escape from trouble), the character teleports back to town.
+The Stone of Recall was permanently removed from the game during late-phase development. It was last present during the [[Diablo III Beta]] and was removed from the game in the Beta version 10 patch, on January 23, 2012.
-There is not a blue portal cast or walked through, though the design theory is that a portal will appear in town, through which players can return to exactly the spot they departed the dungeon. (The return portal feature is not working as of the first week of the [[Diablo III Beta]] test.
+The Stone of Recall was an interface object allowed a character to transport back to town. Its function was identical to the Town Portal feature that replaced it. Ironically, the Stone of Recall was introduced as a replacement for an earlier version of Town Portal, when that ability was activated via a scroll.
-[[File:Stone-of-recall-tooltip1.jpg|frame|center|Scroll of Recall tooltip.]]
+* See the [[Town Portal]] page for details about the town transportation system in place in the final game.
-==Diablo 3 Town Portals==
+==Development Cycle==
-[[File:Recall-stone-wizard2.jpg|thumb|270px|[[Wizard]] casting Stone of Recall.]]
+<blue>Town Portals are gone. We found them to be a crippling combat exploit. We found that while they had some cooperative uses, they tended to split players up a lot. As soon as players wanted to go back to town they did, and then they had to figure out how to get back to their party.  We don’t want players to ever be split up.
 But the big thing is that Town Portals were a combat exploit. When players can essentially portal out of any situation, it makes it almost impossible for the designers to create a game that’s challenging and compelling, or a world that you’re really immersed in. To replace the need for town portals we’ve added salvaging and we have a couple of other systems that we haven’t shown yet that help with that. The goal is for you to not really miss them. </blue>
-==Blue Portals==
+Jay Wilson commented on this subject during an interview at Gamescom 2010: [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/jay-wilson-interview-gamona/]
-[[File:Sorportal.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Back into the fray.]]
+<blue>We’ve put in several things to offset the lack of Town Portals. The most obvious are more frequent Waypoints. These give players more opportunities to return to go back to town. We’ve also added salvaging to let players break items down into small parts that stack up in your inventory. We’ve also added a Scroll of Wealth that allows you to sell items right on location.</blue>
-However, the portal to return to the point where the player used the stone is very similar to the town portals of prior Diablo games, as seen to the right.
+Those other features remained in, but eventually the need for a speedy way to return to town became too pressing to ignore, and in 2011 the developers revealed that the Town Portal function was returning the to game in a new form. [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/town-portals-return....-sorta/]
-===Travel Alternatives===
+==Blue Portals in Diablo III==
-While Town Portals were out of the game, the [[D3 Team]] stressed that the more frequent [[waypoint]]s would prove an adequate substitution. Though the Stone of Recall is in, there's no indication that waypoints are going to be any less common.
+[[File:Sorportal.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Back into the fray.]]
+There were numerous red portals in Diablo II, to take players between distant locations that weren't appropriate for Waypoint travel.  There were also town portals cast by NPCs that players could not use, such as those the rescued Barbarian NPCs cast in Act Five.
-Jay Wilson commented on this subject during an interview at Gamescom 2010: [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/jay-wilson-interview-gamona/]
+These types of portals do not seem to be a feature in Diablo III, other than the ones players see in town, after returning via a town portal. Players can not cast blue portals in the dungeons for other players to use, and while the [[Barbarian]] cast such a portal for the use of [[Deckard Cain]] in the first gameplay movie, released with the June 2008 Diablo III announcement, that feature/function was evolved away from over the course of development.
 ==Spell Lore==

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
-[[Image:Scroll_channel.jpg|frame|left|[[Wizard]] casting Stone of Recall.]]
+[[File:Recall-stone-wizard2.jpg|thumb|270px|[[Wizard]] casting Stone of Recall.]]
 Town Portals returned to the game during development in 2011, as revealed by [[Bashiok]] in a forum post. [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/town-portals-return....-sorta/]
@@ Line 21: / Line 21: @@
 The Stone of Recall is not a drop. It is a permanent part of the [[UI]] once attained through a [[quest]], similar to the [[Nephalem Cube]].
 ==Why They Were Removed==

@@ Line 32: / Line 32: @@
-==Blue Portals?==
+==Blue Portals==
-[[File:Town-portal-cain.jpg|frame|A portal for Cain.]]
+[[File:Sorportal.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Back into the fray.]]
 There were numerous red portals in Diablo II, to take players between distant locations that weren't appropriate for Waypoint travel.  There were also town portals cast by NPCs that players could not use, such as those the rescued Barbarian NPCs cast in Act Five.
-These types of portals may return in Diablo III. One was shown in the first gameplay movie, from June 2008. In it a [[Barbarian]] rescues [[Deckard Cain]] from the dungeon, and sends him back to safety through a portal. Likely there were still player-usable Town Portals in the game, at that early point in the development. How this sort of [[quest]]-related NPC travel will be handled, now that TPs are gone, is unknown. The Stone of Recall is likely to not make a portal at all, and simply move the character back to town.
+These types of portals may return in Diablo III. One was shown in the first gameplay movie, from June 2008. In it a [[Barbarian]] rescues [[Deckard Cain]] from the dungeon, and sends him back to safety through a portal. Likely there were still player-usable Town Portals in the game, at that early point in the development. How this sort of [[quest]]-related NPC travel will be handled, now that TPs are gone, is unknown. The Stone of Recall does not initially make a portal. It simply "pops" into a blue arcane-style mini-explosion as the character disappears, and reappears back in town instantly.
 ===Travel Alternatives===
-While Town Portals were out of the game, the [[D3 Team]] stressed that the more frequent [[waypoint]]s would prove an adequate substitution. Though TPs are back, in some limited form, there's no indication that waypoints are going to be any less common.
+While Town Portals were out of the game, the [[D3 Team]] stressed that the more frequent [[waypoint]]s would prove an adequate substitution. Though the Stone of Recall is in, there's no indication that waypoints are going to be any less common.
-Besides Waypoints allowing players to travel to and from town (or to other waypoints all throughout the game) there are ways for players to sell items directly from the dungeons (via some NPCs, or by other unspecified methods). There is also a way for players to travel instantly one-way from town to join up with others in the dungeon.
+Besides Waypoints allowing players to travel to and from town (or to other waypoints all throughout the game) there are ways for players to sell items directly from the dungeons (via some NPCs, the [[Cauldron of Jordan]], or by other unspecified methods). There is also a way for players to travel instantly one-way from town to join up with others in the dungeon, using the [[Banner]] system.
-Jay Wilson commented on this during an interview at Gamescom 2010: [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/jay-wilson-interview-gamona/]
+Jay Wilson commented on this subject during an interview at Gamescom 2010: [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/jay-wilson-interview-gamona/]
 <blue><font color="#FFFFFF">Gamona.de: There are no town portals in Diablo 3. What’s the alternative for easy travel?</font><br>
 Jay Wilson: We’ve put in several things to offset the lack of Town Portals. The most obvious are more frequent Waypoints. These give players more opportunities to return to go back to town. We’ve also added salvaging to let players break items down into small parts that stack up in your inventory. We’ve also added a Scroll of Wealth that allows you to sell items right on location.</blue>
 ==Spell Lore==