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::'''1UP: Can you talk about the state of the classes? For example, is every class -- even the two that you have yet to reveal -- playable in the game right now?'''
::'''Jay Wilson:''' No. The fourth class is playable in game but is using a placeholder model -- one of an NPC, actually. And all of the skills are what we call "programmer art" because we haven't implemented actual skill effects. So that one is just in gameplay testing for us while we determine signature skills. The fifth class, we're just about finished concepting it and are about to start building it. We can't use placeholder art, so we're now just going to build a model and start working on the first series of skills for that one. We're actually spending more time on the Witch Doctor, Wizard, and Barbarian because of a big change we made to the skill system that we wanted to [integrate them] with -- so it's mostly just artwork that's going on for the other two classes.
There was [http://forums.diii.net/showthread.php?p=6942354 much speculation] as to why they could not use placeholder art for the fifth character, but that seems to have been a red herring.
Even as late as September 2009, the design for the fifth character was still very early, thanks to a big change in approach, even though the character had been sketched out on their drawing board since the earliest days of the project. [http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/09/diablo-iii-character-classes/]
* There's no character in the game who specializes in bows or ranged weapons.
** The fifth character will fit a niche not occupied by any other character. [http://www.giantbomb.com/news/hands-on-with-diablo-iiis-street-fighter-inspired-monk-class/1658/]
* The fifth class is said to be very similar to/inspired by a class from an earlier game in the series. [http://pc.ign.com/articles/101/1017305p21017305p3.html]
** The return of any other Diablo 2 chars has been ruled out. (For D3; some might return in expansion packs.)
** The Diablo 1 Warrior is too simple generic and his combat role is filled by the Barbarian and Monk.
** The Diablo 1 Sorcerer would be redundant with the [[Wizard]].
** The Monk, added in {{iw|Hellfire Hellfire}} is already in the game, though the D3 Monk traces no official lineage to the Hellfire version. (Blizzard The D3 Team has disowned, him and de-canon'ing ed Hellfire entirely.)
*** This leaves the Diablo 1 Rogue as the only realistic returning character option.
===Blizzard Comments on the Fifth Character===
[[Jay Wilson]] made a comment about a possible reappearance of a character from Diablo 1 or 2 in an interview with IGN at Blizzcon 2009: [http://pc.ign.com/articles/101/1017305p21017305p3.html] ::'''''IGN:''''' You did mention that [the fifth class is] being revealed next year, and that it's someone from the previous games...''::'''Jay Wilson: ''' I did say that. I probably shouldn't have said that, because we're not sure that's going to be the case. It's just logical, that's what we tend to do. But it may or may not. I'm not gonna answer it, anyway... [laughs]''
When asked why they revealed the Monk 4thas the fourth character, Blizzard gave an interesting answer. [http://www.diii.net/blog/comments/exclusive-blizzcon-interview-julian-love-and-kevin-martens/]
::'''''Diii.net:''' Why did you choose to reveal the Monk this year? Was there some debate re: the Monk vs. the other unannounced class? ''
While Kevin doesn't exactly say so, his reply contains a strong element of, "we didn't want to reveal 2 ranged attackers in a row." Since they had the unknown 5th character, and the melee fighter Monk to choose from for the 4th reveal, that strongly hints at a ranged attacker remaining for the last slot.
Jay Wilson added more details about the character's long development in another Blizzcon 2009 interview.[http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/09/diablo-iii-character-classes/]
::Wilson said at Blizzcon that his team doesn’t yet have a final concept for the fifth class, and that they recently changed their minds about it. But he’s quick to add that doesn’t mean that they’ve changed the character completely. “We changed gears,” he said. “We changed our high-level idea of the class because it was actually one of the first classes that we picked, years and years ago.”
The fact that the class was chosen first, he said, was part of the reason why it needs to be re-tooled. “We’ve had this class for four years, and it’s not as exciting to us as it used to be,” he said. “It had actually become a chain around our necks.” The new class isn’t a “complete departure” from the first concept, Wilson said. “Most of the skills can transfer over, but (the changes) definitely freed up our art staff to be a lot more imaginative.”
Midnight Murder from [[Diii.net]] looked at the code, hinting that the last class might be "Rogue" or another 5-character long name to the class.[http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=757665]
This assumes of course that fairly-silly assumption acts as though Blizzard is not planning isn't going to redesign their class pages completelyentire site, change the font or spacing of the other character names, changing margins etc. Under the condition that Blizzard will just ''add another class'' to the list, a 5-character long name (or shorter) would be the logical alternative, and people are already rooting for the [[Rogue]] to return anyway. The question here really relies primarily of Blizzard's plans for the website. Perhaps the whole site will see a redesign before release? Looking at [http://www.starcraft2.com/ StarCraft2.com], however, this has so far not been the case, midway into closed beta. Having said that, it would not be a major deal for Blizzard to just change margins, font sizes or some other minor design detail in order to add a longer name than 5 characters.
