A Blizzard staffer going by the username 'Bashiok' was quick to offer up an answer as to how death is being handled in the new Diablo title. And there's a stark difference between the new system and the one found in Diablo 2: rather than being sent back to town and having to venture back to where you perished to recover your place (without any of your gear, mind you), you'll now be sent back to a checkpoint. These checkpoints are scattered throughout the world and "generally" at the end of each level of a dungeon. When respawning at a checkpoint you'll be left with a small amount of health.

Bashiok added, "It's just too early to put a ton of thought in to what penalties there should be, if any, added on top of it." That doesn't make me particularly optimistic that we'll soon be playing Diablo 3, but at least we're getting some insight into how things are changing from Diablo 2. Hopefully we won't have to suffer through an outcry over the change like we did when Blizzard first showed the game's change in art direction over its predecessors.