Major Update: Followers

[tommerbob]

FOLLOWERS

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The new Followers (or Mercenaries for D2 veterans) has now been announced! You can find the official video here:

[video]http://youtu.be/MSc0agGNJkw[/video]

Most of the info we have so far has come through different interviews that the D3 team is doing. You can find it on several different websites so I'll just quote one of them:

Here's the bulk of the info gathered so far...

- All of the Followers have their own unique personalities and stories. Players will learn more about them over the course of the game and find sub-quests to help their followers and learn more about them.

- Lyndon, the Scoundrel. From Kingsport, a “thief in mind and heart” who has some of the best comic lines. He uses ranged attacks with bows and crossbows. Jay Wilson compared him to the Rogue from D1.

- Kormac the Templar is is powerful melee brawler. He’s a tank and is on a mission to recover holy scrolls that were stolen by Archbishop Lazarus.

- Eirena the Enchantress has a past shrouded in mystery. She follows a figure called The Prophet and has excellent crowd control spells, plus a variety of character buffs.

- Followers are only available when you’re playing alone, either SP or by yourself MP. If another player joins the game, your Followers will return to town for the duration. You (and the other players) will get your Followers back when you next play solo.

- Followers have all their own unique animations and gear looks. They also have full voice recordings and numerous lines of dialogue to go along with their stories.

- They are available all throughout the game. You can switch between them at will. A new follower will be appropriate to your level when you first hire them; you don’t have to go back to normal to level up a new one if you hire them in Hell.

- Followers do not die; if they run out of hit points they just fall down unconscious for a while, and any bonuses they were granting you vanish for the duration of their nap. You can accelerate their recovery by standing beside them for a few seconds.

- Followers can not be manually healed with potions, but they will share in your health globe consumption, just like other players or pets.

- They are smarter than the Mercs were in D2, but they’re not going to be mistaken for a human player.

- Their four tiers of skills unlock at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20, and their behavior will be modified by the skills you choose.

- They can be respeced at any time, for a gold price.

- You can not assign the Followers commands or “ready” stances, though Leonard and Jay both say that the skills you choose affect their behavior.

- They can not use skill runes.

- Followers equip left and right weapons (can use shields), along with 2 rings and an amulet. No other equipment can be equipped, however they each have a special item type; Leonard said the Paladin Templar gets a special tome of some kind. These special items will add buffs or bonuses to the followers and possibly to you as well.

- All of the followers have skills that grant them Gold Find or Magic Find, and they can presumably benefit from MF or GF on their equipment as well.

- Followers travel with the Caravan, along with the Artisans and various other NPC quest-givers, some of whom occasionally go out into the world as well.

- Leonard was not sure if their equipment would lose durability from use, but I’d guess not, ala D2’s convenience on that front.

Source: www.diii.net

Thanks to Bloodcount for the pic.

 

[Bloodcount]

Awesome ! I just hope this wasn't intended to be a fb update ^_^


Well the video was nice, it is good to know that you can twist their abilities to what you want : )

 

[Jedimindtrixxx]

I dont like the fact that they wont be with you in MP. no more merc for mana regen aura for pally teleporting anymore (no more pally as well though so eh). i like how its more in depth now though. and the smarter AI and no wasting gold on revives.

 

[Nenad]

I never really payed much attention to the followers in D2. Even though they were good I liked that my character was the one killing and not an add. I think these are nice for singleplayer and for new players who aren't that good, but it is definite that i won't use them even there. Also that video looks crap for some reason, i think they had like all low settings and no AA in the game, but it looked worse than the 2008 gameplay video (and they changed a hell of a lot from then).

 

[Bloodcount]

tom, can you please update the first post with the following screenshot ?

Yeah, those are them, pretty sweet.

EDIT: high-res download link http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/_images/artwork/ss1099-hires.jpg