Diablo III Has Five Times as Many Lines of Dialogue as Starcraft II

At the BlizzCon 2011 Diablo III Sound Panel a deluge of auditory information rained down upon attendees. One rather exciting bit of news revolved around the number of lines of dialogue recorded for the game, somewhere around 13,000 to 16,000. Compare that to the paltry 3,000 lines found in World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2.

Making up these 14,500 lines are 1,200 lines for each version of the five classes, bit characters inhabiting the world of Sanctuary, and the monstrous mutterings of 16 different monster types… Wait, that’s it? Seems awfully low.

But, on a more positive note, the annoyance you get from hearing the same damn noise every time you make an attack in any game has been acknowledged by Senior Sound Designer Kris Giampa, and Blizzard has come up with a solution. Each skill has been split into three distinct phases: A casting or warm-up period, the time during which the skill is being performed, and finally the final impact, explosion, or appearance of a summoned zombie dog phase. These sounds are then given randomized effects to change length, pitch, and/or volume.

If you pay close attention to any random beta gameplay, you’ll see what they’ve done.

[via GameFront]