Diabo III's Artisan Feature Explained

Blizzard pulled back the curtain on the way that Diablo III will approach crafting at GamesCom 2010 in Cologne, Germany. By offloading crafting onto followers, the Artisan system allows players to create powerful magical items without making them hang around in town wasting time better spent killing monsters.

Three artisans will join you after you complete certain quests within the greater storyline. They will have names and backstories of their own, but for now we know them only by their trades.

All artisans have basic vendor functionality, allowing you to buy and sell items at your camp rather than shopkeepers in town. Beyond that, their capabilities vary greatly.

The blacksmith unsurprisingly focuses on equipment supporting close combat. Heavy armor, swords, axes, and the like can all be found here. He can also add sockets to items, allowing you to place an additional stat-boosting gem into an existing item. He can also repair any damaged equipment you may have.

The jeweller focuses on gems. He can combine lower-grade gems into more powerful versions, and pop a previously socketed gem out of an item (preserving both the gem and the item in the process).

The mystic can identify items (though he'll never replace Deckard Cain in our hearts), add a chosen affix to an already magical item (allowing you to focus on, say, critical hit chance if that's your thing), and craft magical totems like wands.

To fund these powerful abilities, you'll have to collect materials by breaking down existing items. The good news is that you can do it in the field, clearing space in your inventory by reducing bulky swag to easily stackable components. The bad news is that this has allowed Blizzard to remove town portals from the game entirely.

Game director Jay Wilson rightfully contends that allowing players to create portals to the safety of a town at will leads to bad design and bad gameplay. Players end up using them as safety buffers; fight near an open portal and you're always just a click from perfect safety. The point is certainly valid, but I have to admit that I'm going to miss the convenience. Wilson says that waypoints (which work similarly to Diablo II's) will be much more frequent in an attempt to alleviate that somewhat, but it won't be the same.

Even if I'll miss that old town portal bwong-ong I've heard so many thousands of times, I'm as on board the Diablo III train as ever. Judging by the cheers, excited murmurs, and palpable enthusiasm from the Euro crowd at GamesCom, I'm not the only one. Like everyone else, I just wish they'd let me play it already.

Blizzard still won't commit to shipping it any sooner than "when it's done," but previous indications have put it in fiscal year 2011 (March 2011 - March 2012), and nothing I've seen contradicts that.

And no, there's no news about a console release yet. Believe me, we'll let you know if we hear anything.