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The D3 Team wants to improve on how quests were handled in Diablo II. They want the major quests to be interesting, important, and plot-driven. Many of these quests will be character-specific; your [[Barbarian]] or [[Witch Doctor]] won't just be an errand boy and the quest won't just be something minor; it will advance the [[story]]. Another type of quest are the "adventures" which are semi-random and tied to locations in the game.
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'''Quests''' lead the story and progression of Diablo 3.  
  
==Known Quests==
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==What Are Quests?==
  
The first few quests to be revealed were seen in the Blizzcon demo in October 2008. They were simple, straight-forward quests that could fit neatly into the small dungeon that was enabled in that show build, but they give some idea of how quests will work in the game. Click the following links to read the individual articles about each quest.
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Quests are the meat of Diablo's plot, story, and progression. They must be followed to progress. In Diablo II Lord of Destruction there were many quests that contributed significantly to character building, but unfortunately this iconic feature has been removed in Diablo III for unknown reasons.
  
* [[The Doll]]
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==How Quests Work==
* [[Escort Mission]]
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* [[The Skeleton King]]
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Quests are triggered and continued by following the instructions below the minimap on the side of the screen. When completed, they provide experiance and gold (only), which is a big change from how the Diablo II quest system worked. In addition, all quests ''must'' be completed, one after another in the order they are given. There is no way to fail a quest in Diablo III. It is possible to have a high level character "carry" you through content, until you reach level caps. It is even possible to [[powerlevel]] through the content.
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[[Waypoints]] and [[Checkpoints]] are unlocked based on quest progress.
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==Quest Interface==
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[[Image:Q-the-skeleton-king1.jpg|thumb|125px|Blizzcon 2008 display.]]
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[[File:Quest-window2.jpg|left|thumb|150px|Blizzcon 2009 display.]]
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The final quest interface was modified from the blizzcon versions. The final version consists of a small description of the task to accomplish, and a journel entry for whatever class the player is using. A very easy way to check what is needed to be done on a quest is to look to the right of the screen, which has the instructions on how to progress in the quest.
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==List of Quests==
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Below are all the quests in [[Diablo III]].
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===Events===
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[[Events]] are mini quests that build off, but are not directly connected to (usually) the main quests.
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===Act I Quests===
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[[Act I]] has 10 quests.
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The following quests are in Act I:
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* [[The Fallen Star]]
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* [[The Legacy of Cain]]
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* [[A Shattered Crown]]
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* [[Reign of the Black King]]
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* [[Sword of the Stranger]]
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* [[The Broken Blade]]
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* [[The Doom in Wortham]]
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* [[Trailing the Coven]]
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* [[Imprisoned Angel]]
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* [[Return to New Tristram]]
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The [[Return to New Tristram]] is manditory for doing the [[Infernal Machine]] event.
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===Act II Quests===
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[[Act II]] has 10 quests.
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The folling quest are in Act II:
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* [[Shadows in the Desert]]
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* [[The Road to Alcarnus]]
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* [[City of Blood]]
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* [[A Royal Audience]]
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* [[Unexpected Allies]]
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* [[Betrayer of the Horadrim]]
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* [[Blood and Sand]]
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* [[The Black Soulstone (quest)|The Black Soulstone]]
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* [[The Scouring of Caldeum]]
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* [[The Lord of Lies (quest)|The Lord of Lies]]
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===Act III Quests===
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[[Act III]] has less quests than the other acts, with only 7.
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The following quests are in Act III:
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* [[The Siege of Bastion's Keep]]
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* [[Turning the Tide]]
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* [[The Breached Keep]]
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* [[Tremors in the Stone]]
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* [[Machines of War]]
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* [[Siegebreaker]]
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* [[Heart of Sin]]
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===Act IV Quests===
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[[Act IV]], like [[diablo II]]'s {{iw|Act_IV Act 4}}, is the smallest act in Diablo III, with a grand total of 4 quests.
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The following quests are in Act IV:
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* [[Fall of the High Heavens]]
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* [[The Light of Hope]]
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* [[Beneath the Spire]]
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* [[The Prime Evil]]
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==Events==
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[[Events]] are small sub-quests that have a random chance to spawn in an area. They can appear accross every act besides [[Act IV]]. Typically, they consist of completing a task for an npc, such as the [[Matriarch's Bones]] event or the [[Forged in Battle]] event.
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==Quest Development==
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[[Image:Q-the-skeleton-king1.jpg|thumb|125px|Blizzcon 2008 display.]]
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[[File:Quest-window2.jpg|left|thumb|150px|Blizzcon 2009 display.]]
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<blue><font color="#FFFFFF"><b>Atomic Gamer:</b> Is there anything specifically from Diablo II that the team felt needed improvement and wanted to tweak for Diablo III?</font><br>
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<b>Kevin Martens: </b>The questing and story. I think we’ve added way more quests, more variety of quests. We’ve randomized the quests, and have these sort of quests that are self contained. For example, if you enter a dungeon in Diablo III, there might be somebody standing at the entrance, like a treasure hunter, saying, “Hey, I heard stories about The Idol of Rygnar is hidden somewhere in this dungeon. Help me find it and you can share in the reward.” Then you go through the dungeon and protect this guy. Then you’ll find the idol and you’ll get the reward.
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 +
People will turn on you…you’re never quite sure what is going to happen. We’re adding all those random elements all over the world. There is way more quest content overall than Diablo II, period. Also, I think we wanted to do a much better job on the storytelling aspects, not just the cinematics, which are fantastic, but also in the storytelling itself, like more twists and turns, more interesting quests, more variety of experiences. That’s what we spent a lot of time on, and making the co-op nature of it better as well.</blue>
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This was one of the first statements blizzard made on behalf of quests in diablo III. As you can see, blizzard was origionally intending to make quests diverse, interesting, and much improved to diablo 2.
  
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===Blizzcons===
  
==Quests as Story==
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At [[Blizzcon 2008]], a couple of quests were playable. They were:
  
The D3 Team is trying to make D3 much more [[story]]-driven. They want the characters to be individuals and to be important figures in the world; not just interchangeable errand boys, as they usually were in Diablo II. [[Leonard Boyarsky]] talked about this [http://www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/diabloiii2.php in in an interview in September, 2008].
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* [[Little Girl Lost]]
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* [[Escort Mission]] (not actual name, the real one was never stated)
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* [[The Skeleton King]]
  
::The RPG elements we're focusing on developing more this time around are in the areas of story and character development. We really want you to feel like you can have an effect on the world -- and that the world can affect your character in turn. In the past, action-RPGs have either come down on the side of action or RPG, and we don't think that's a choice that necessarily has to be made. Our goal is to make the RPG-style story elements more engaging than they previously have been in the action-RPG genre. The main way we do this without interfering with the hack-and-slash gameplay is by making it opt-in -- if you don't care about the story, or if you’re replaying the game and have already seen the story elements, the game will still be fun, but if you do care about it, the story will bring a whole extra level of involvement to the game experience.
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All were featured in Tristram/ nearby dungeons. Quest rewards were small items (random boots and the like). Only the skeleton king quest appeared in the final game.
  
::A central feature of this philosophy is making as few quests as possible mandatory, but having a wide variety of interesting side quests and random quests to play through if you want to. We are also doing a lot with scripted sequences and books that you can read in the game, but once again, you can completely avoid these things if they don't interest you.  
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At [[Blizzcon 2009]], many more quests than the last year were avaible, based in the deserts in [[Act 2]]. They were:
  
There will also be quests related to the lore/story of the game, though they're not about to give out any specifics yet. This was discussed in the [[WWI_2008:_D3_Lore_and_Environmental_Art_Panel|WWI 2008 Lore and Environmental Art Panel]], when a fan asked if there would be quests to obtain special items, such as the Horadric Cube.
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* [[Find Alcarnus]]*
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* [[Blood Money]]
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* [[Stranded]]
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* [[The Lost Girl]]
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* [[Alesar's Pendant]]
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* [[The Collapsing Tomb]]*
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* [[The Lost Wagon]]
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* [[The Necromancer's Book]]
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* [[A Miner's Gold]]*
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* [[The Idol of Rygnar]]*
  
::The way the process works is we look into the story and lore and we want that to drive the gameplay and quests. Even if I knew for sure, which I don't, we wouldn't be divulging specific details yet. There will be quests related to lore. That's what we want our quests to be this time. We don't want to have quests just to get this or that. We want it to resonate with main story. So things like Horadric cube we don't know specifically, but we know everyone loves that type of thing we work on story side with game and item designers and that stuff comes bout organically. That's how it came about in D2 also, they didn't set out to make the cube, it just came about through the game design process.  
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Some of these quests appeared in some form or another in the final game (*'s). Rewards were items and experiance.
  
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A couple small quests appeared at [[Blizzcon 2010]]. They were:
  
==Adventures==
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* [[The Torture Chambers of the Mad King]]
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* [[Escort the Weapon Maker]]
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* [[Queen Alyssa's Servants]]
  
Adventures are mini-quests that don't tie into the overall plot. They're semi-random, and may have valuable rewards, but don't need to be completed to advance through an act. The D3 Team described them in the [[WWI_2008:_D3_Design_Fundamentals_Panel|WWI 2008 Design Fundamentals Panel]].
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All 3 of these quests appeared in the final game, although the first mention was expanded upon as the [[Imprisoned Angel]] quest.
  
::Adventures are an expansion on a lot of the randomness from D1 and D2. They allow us to place a scripted event almost anywhere in game world. You could come across a particular area in the outdoor world with a variety of possible elements in it. One game it could be a old abandoned house to explore. Maybe it's infested with crazy undead guys, and as you clean it out you learn the story of the family who lived there. Another game that same area might instead have a clearing where a cult is performing a summoning ritual. Another game might feature a cavavan that needs protection from marauding monsters, or escort to the nearest town. Another game you might find a boss monster there. Or you might just get random monsters. The idea is that every time you go through the game we want you to see something different. We want to provide randomization everywhere, to make things so replayable. To make it fun to keep coming back to.  
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===Early Stances===
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<blue><font color="#FFFFFF">I think Jay hinted during Blizzcon that there might be updated quests to keep higher level content exciting to keep people coming back and playing again. </font><br>
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Julian Love: It's not so much actually high level versus low level. I think we have a plan that facilitates high level content. What I think you're really getting at there is replayability, and what that gets down to is the way we're exercising randomness within the game. We've put a lot of focus towards what kinds of randomness are really beneficial in supporting replayability and what things are just, heh, not all that important or not all that awesome. One of the things that we have in the system that we have is something that we call - well, we have a really technical name for it -- sub-scenes.
  
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What it comes down to is we can sort of like create a hole in the world that's like a socket that we can fill with just about anything that we want. It could be empty ground with a bunch of monsters on it, it could be a giant canyon that a really elaborate scripted event happens, it could turn into a caravan walking across the desert that you have an escort quest on. The point being is that this hole in the earth can randomly, at any time become something totally different. It could even be a doorway to a whole new dungeon that you've never seen before. So, the fact that the world is able to change things up and actually deliver different events, stories and quests is what's really going to make the game a lot more replayable at the both the low and high ends.</font></blue>
  
==Class-Specific Quests==
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This was somewhat implamented in the final game, but not to a great extent.
  
Some of the Quests (and adventures?) will be character-specific, offered only to characters of a given class, or else customized in some particular way for your character's specific class. This was covered in the [[WWI_2008:_Denizens_of_Diablo_Panel|WWI 2008 Denizens of Diablo panel]].
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<blue>We’re doing -– there’s a main storyline that is, parts of it might be randomized depending on the area, depending on what the quests are, depending on what the actual objective is. But apart from the main quest, most of our other content is randomized, so from game to game it will be completely different. I can’t give you any kind of percentage because we’re still playing with those numbers, but that’s really the way we built this game is so that we can have a lot of randomized content, including story elements and including quests.</blue>
  
::We'll also have various class quests that will be very interesting. Each class will have different views of the story that will play out through conversations. Bottom line beyond all this is it gives us a way to put the hero at the center of the story. Your hero can drive the story as opposed to being errand boy. You can decide best thing to do. Villages can be cowardly, you can suggest we need to go do this, not just me. I can take control because no one else will. Puts you at center of the action. Makes char have more of a hero feel.  
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This did appear in the final game in the form of events. However, the main story is completely static.
  
How this sort of thing would work in a party game, where there were characters of different classes playing together, remains to be seen. Perhaps some quests would only appear in single player games, while others would work for mixed parties, with the goals of the quest the same and only the dialogue differing for each class.
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====Randomized Quests====
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<blue><font color="#FFFFFF">DF: Will there be class specific quests in the game? If so, can you explain how they would work?</font><br>
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Jay Wilson: We are still discussing whether or not we would like to include class-specific quests in the game mainly because of the simple fact that it may not really fit in with the fast-paced play-style known to the Diablo series. While this is definitely something we would like to consider, we just haven't agreed on how just yet.  
  
==How Many Quests?==
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However, we would like to do something in regards to character specificity. We are looking into having different dialogues and experiences for the same quest or interaction for each of the classes. Each character will react differently and have different responses for different scenarios. For example, the Barbarian may do or say one thing in response to what an NPC has to say, whereas a Witch Doctor will treat the encounter in a complete opposite manner.</blue>
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<blue><font color="#FFFFFF">Can you tell us anymore about the class-specific quest system in the game?</font><br>
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Jay Wilson: Not a a lot but I can tell you we do intend to do some class quests and mostly what we want to do is give [[story]] arcs to the characters. We don't want them to be kind of nameless...I think we've reached a point where we are trying to build a universe and a universe is filled with characters. And so a lot of what we want to do with the class quests is support that idea to build characters.
  
The D3 Team has said that D3 will be about the same size as D2, but that it will have many more quests. This total presumably includes the smaller adventures, as well as main plot-driving quests. [http://www.diii.net/n/687810/jay-wilson-from-leipzig-6 Jay Wilson commented on this] in an interview with German site 4players.de.
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<font color="#FFFFFF">: So when you start the game will the different classes begin in the same place or will you start at some sort of origin level to setup your character?</font><br>
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Jay Wilson: Originally we wanted to do an origin - we wanted to actually have the characters start in their own location but it was a monumental cost for us to do it so we decided that we would have everyone start in the same place. We do try to set the characters up though. We have a little event early on that's going to try to setup where the characters come from and what their mindset is.</blue>
  
::We believe Diablo 2 was a very good size, even with the number of quests. In any case, more than in Diablo 2, Diablo 3 will have more quests and many of them have a much stronger tie to the game. Compare this to Diablo 2, where quests generally came in 6 per Act, but in Diablo 3 we have no quest limit. So we can continue to insert as many quests as we like, until we feel that we've got a good amount and there aren't too many. We want to concentrate on quests that are really fun and contribute to the game. If I have to come up with a number, I'd say there's probably twice as many quests, but I wouldn't nail it down like that. It could still be more or less at this point.
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Blizzard has not yet added class specific quests in Diablo III.
  
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===Summary===
  
==NPC Conversations==
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Long story short, blizzard appears to have had goals for making quests more interesting but ended up scrapping most of it, and now we have what we do today.
  
[[NPC]] conversations in Diablo III are shown in the normal game screen. The camera merely zooms in a bit. The conversation is ended and the screen returns to normal if you click anywhere outside of the dialogue tree, or press the space bar or Esc key.
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===Quests in the Expansion===
  
When the game debuted at the WWI event in June 2008, NPC converstions were portrayed in a special pop up window display which you can see below. This approach was abandoned between the June premiere and Blizzcon in October, since the D3 Team felt that it took players out of the flow of the game.  
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No changes to quests have been made so far in the expansion [[Reaper of Souls]].
  
[[Image:Npc-interaction.jpg|center|frame|Early concept for NPC dialogue; now removed. The Barbarian speaks with [[Deckard Cain]].]]
 
  
  
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{{Quest_navbox|act_I}}
  
 
[[category:quests]]
 
[[category:quests]]
 
[[category:basics]]
 
[[category:basics]]
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[[Category:Featured articles]]
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[[stub:it requires pictures of the modern quest interface]]

Latest revision as of 09:51, 13 March 2020

Quests lead the story and progression of Diablo 3.

What Are Quests?[edit | edit source]

Quests are the meat of Diablo's plot, story, and progression. They must be followed to progress. In Diablo II Lord of Destruction there were many quests that contributed significantly to character building, but unfortunately this iconic feature has been removed in Diablo III for unknown reasons.

How Quests Work[edit | edit source]

Quests are triggered and continued by following the instructions below the minimap on the side of the screen. When completed, they provide experiance and gold (only), which is a big change from how the Diablo II quest system worked. In addition, all quests must be completed, one after another in the order they are given. There is no way to fail a quest in Diablo III. It is possible to have a high level character "carry" you through content, until you reach level caps. It is even possible to powerlevel through the content.

Waypoints and Checkpoints are unlocked based on quest progress.

Quest Interface[edit | edit source]

Blizzcon 2008 display.
Blizzcon 2009 display.

The final quest interface was modified from the blizzcon versions. The final version consists of a small description of the task to accomplish, and a journel entry for whatever class the player is using. A very easy way to check what is needed to be done on a quest is to look to the right of the screen, which has the instructions on how to progress in the quest.

List of Quests[edit | edit source]

Below are all the quests in Diablo III.

Events[edit | edit source]

Events are mini quests that build off, but are not directly connected to (usually) the main quests.



Act I Quests[edit | edit source]

Act I has 10 quests. The following quests are in Act I:

The Return to New Tristram is manditory for doing the Infernal Machine event.

Act II Quests[edit | edit source]

Act II has 10 quests. The folling quest are in Act II:

Act III Quests[edit | edit source]

Act III has less quests than the other acts, with only 7. The following quests are in Act III:

Act IV Quests[edit | edit source]

Act IV, like diablo II's Act 4, is the smallest act in Diablo III, with a grand total of 4 quests. The following quests are in Act IV:

Events[edit | edit source]

Events are small sub-quests that have a random chance to spawn in an area. They can appear accross every act besides Act IV. Typically, they consist of completing a task for an npc, such as the Matriarch's Bones event or the Forged in Battle event.

Quest Development[edit | edit source]

Blizzcon 2008 display.
Blizzcon 2009 display.
Atomic Gamer: Is there anything specifically from Diablo II that the team felt needed improvement and wanted to tweak for Diablo III?

Kevin Martens: The questing and story. I think we’ve added way more quests, more variety of quests. We’ve randomized the quests, and have these sort of quests that are self contained. For example, if you enter a dungeon in Diablo III, there might be somebody standing at the entrance, like a treasure hunter, saying, “Hey, I heard stories about The Idol of Rygnar is hidden somewhere in this dungeon. Help me find it and you can share in the reward.” Then you go through the dungeon and protect this guy. Then you’ll find the idol and you’ll get the reward.

People will turn on you…you’re never quite sure what is going to happen. We’re adding all those random elements all over the world. There is way more quest content overall than Diablo II, period. Also, I think we wanted to do a much better job on the storytelling aspects, not just the cinematics, which are fantastic, but also in the storytelling itself, like more twists and turns, more interesting quests, more variety of experiences. That’s what we spent a lot of time on, and making the co-op nature of it better as well.

This was one of the first statements blizzard made on behalf of quests in diablo III. As you can see, blizzard was origionally intending to make quests diverse, interesting, and much improved to diablo 2.

Blizzcons[edit | edit source]

At Blizzcon 2008, a couple of quests were playable. They were:

All were featured in Tristram/ nearby dungeons. Quest rewards were small items (random boots and the like). Only the skeleton king quest appeared in the final game.

At Blizzcon 2009, many more quests than the last year were avaible, based in the deserts in Act 2. They were:

Some of these quests appeared in some form or another in the final game (*'s). Rewards were items and experiance.

A couple small quests appeared at Blizzcon 2010. They were:

All 3 of these quests appeared in the final game, although the first mention was expanded upon as the Imprisoned Angel quest.

Early Stances[edit | edit source]

I think Jay hinted during Blizzcon that there might be updated quests to keep higher level content exciting to keep people coming back and playing again.

Julian Love: It's not so much actually high level versus low level. I think we have a plan that facilitates high level content. What I think you're really getting at there is replayability, and what that gets down to is the way we're exercising randomness within the game. We've put a lot of focus towards what kinds of randomness are really beneficial in supporting replayability and what things are just, heh, not all that important or not all that awesome. One of the things that we have in the system that we have is something that we call - well, we have a really technical name for it -- sub-scenes.

What it comes down to is we can sort of like create a hole in the world that's like a socket that we can fill with just about anything that we want. It could be empty ground with a bunch of monsters on it, it could be a giant canyon that a really elaborate scripted event happens, it could turn into a caravan walking across the desert that you have an escort quest on. The point being is that this hole in the earth can randomly, at any time become something totally different. It could even be a doorway to a whole new dungeon that you've never seen before. So, the fact that the world is able to change things up and actually deliver different events, stories and quests is what's really going to make the game a lot more replayable at the both the low and high ends.

This was somewhat implamented in the final game, but not to a great extent.

We’re doing -– there’s a main storyline that is, parts of it might be randomized depending on the area, depending on what the quests are, depending on what the actual objective is. But apart from the main quest, most of our other content is randomized, so from game to game it will be completely different. I can’t give you any kind of percentage because we’re still playing with those numbers, but that’s really the way we built this game is so that we can have a lot of randomized content, including story elements and including quests.

This did appear in the final game in the form of events. However, the main story is completely static.

Randomized Quests[edit | edit source]

DF: Will there be class specific quests in the game? If so, can you explain how they would work?

Jay Wilson: We are still discussing whether or not we would like to include class-specific quests in the game mainly because of the simple fact that it may not really fit in with the fast-paced play-style known to the Diablo series. While this is definitely something we would like to consider, we just haven't agreed on how just yet.

However, we would like to do something in regards to character specificity. We are looking into having different dialogues and experiences for the same quest or interaction for each of the classes. Each character will react differently and have different responses for different scenarios. For example, the Barbarian may do or say one thing in response to what an NPC has to say, whereas a Witch Doctor will treat the encounter in a complete opposite manner.
Can you tell us anymore about the class-specific quest system in the game?

Jay Wilson: Not a a lot but I can tell you we do intend to do some class quests and mostly what we want to do is give [[story]] arcs to the characters. We don't want them to be kind of nameless...I think we've reached a point where we are trying to build a universe and a universe is filled with characters. And so a lot of what we want to do with the class quests is support that idea to build characters.

: So when you start the game will the different classes begin in the same place or will you start at some sort of origin level to setup your character?

Jay Wilson: Originally we wanted to do an origin - we wanted to actually have the characters start in their own location but it was a monumental cost for us to do it so we decided that we would have everyone start in the same place. We do try to set the characters up though. We have a little event early on that's going to try to setup where the characters come from and what their mindset is.

Blizzard has not yet added class specific quests in Diablo III.

Summary[edit | edit source]

Long story short, blizzard appears to have had goals for making quests more interesting but ended up scrapping most of it, and now we have what we do today.

Quests in the Expansion[edit | edit source]

No changes to quests have been made so far in the expansion Reaper of Souls.


stub:it requires pictures of the modern quest interface