Diablo III: Reaper of Souls - Interview @ Player Attack

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Player Attack has posted a new interview with Lead Character Artist Paul Warzech at Blizzard about how he created Diablo III: Reaper of Souls.

Warzecha is one part of a team that specialises in taking relatively sensible elements and blending them into one fantastic outcome, and he's quick to point out that - generally - creating a new character class, monster or boss really is a group effort.

"Usually once we've got stuff down that we like, we'll get together with our monster strike team. We've got somebody in from every different discipline, we'll have a designer and we'll have somebody from story in there who can kinda help shape that from that aspect. We'll hit back and forth on [the character idea] until we're all pretty happy with stuff."

But! The process can vary - considerably - depending on just which monsters are on the proverbial drawing board that day. Inspiration can strike from anywhere, says Warzecha. Sometimes, that lightning will spark something in the writing department, leading the lore nerds to draft out a description of a monster that fits the story perfectly. Other times, it will land squarely at the artists' table, prompting creative drawings and sculptures that then need to be woven back into the history of Sanctuary. Still other times (like with the new character class, the Crusader, introduced in Reaper of Souls) it's a matter of an obvious niche appearing in the game, even if that niche is purely cosmetic. "There was nobody of that silhouette in Westmarch," we're told, matter-of-factly.

"Sometimes you come up with something that's just So Cool that we're just like "Y'know what? We've got to build this". Then, we'll sit with story - "Hey, this is what we were thinking, is there a way to work this into lore?", because #1: It's just cool; and #2: Maybe it works for gameplay in a way that it fills a void that needed to be filled."​