Diablo 3 Fan

Rob Pardo revealed in a recent interview with 1UP that in the most likely case, the payment structure (Buy the game, play free online.) of Battle.net will not be changed. Blizzard is not planning on utilizing a subscription model like in World of Warcraft, but rather follow the model of its predecessor, Diablo II.

I’d like to share with you a few key questions I found interesting during 1UP’s Interview With Rob Pardo.

1UP: Speaking of the WOW experience, other action-RPG games have attempted a subscription model of sorts, can you talk at all about that for Diablo III?

RP: Well, ultimately, we’ll decide on the final business model of the game in the future, but I don’t think you’re going to see a subscription model in the realm of WOW. It’s a boxed product game, it will be more similar to say, the Diablo II or the StarCraft II model.

1UP: Can you talk about any specific Battle.net changes that will be made for Diablo III?

RP: Battle.net is in constant evolution; for each game we really add a lot of features to Battle.net. And right now we’re really focusing on the Battle.net features for StarCraft II. But we definitely have been keeping Diablo III in mind also. I think probably sometimes towards the end of the year, we’re going to really start talking about the new Battle.net features as they pertain to StarCraft 2, and a lot of those features will carry over to Diablo III.

1UP: Will it be similar to Diablo II, where it’s around five, maybe a few more, classes in the core game?

RP: I don’t think we’re saying today, but it will be very similar to the previous games. [Note: This was asked and answered before the FAQ for the Diablo III site went up, where five classes were confirmed.]

1UP: As a bonus nostalgia kick, the demo had Deckard Cain. Are there any other nostalgic bits you can touch on? Will Wirt be the key to the cow level?

RP: [Laughs.] You’ll have to wait and see.