Diablo 3 art update

Blizzard has uploaded some new art and a couple of screenshots. I must confess I’m a little underwhelmed.

The barbarian character looks fine when reduced five times but zoom in and you see brush strokes - it looks like the artist had an hour or less.

It does carry the message that barbarian armor is crude and rugged but I’d love to see a bit more details. Other AAA titles have MUCH, MUCH superior art.

Update: I see a few Blizzard fanboys commenting how I don’t appreciate Blizzard brushstroke genius. I simply said “I’d love to see a bit more details“. Here’s what I mean - compare Warhammer concept art to Diablo 3 concept art. Now, tell me Blizzard are not taking shortcuts when it comes to concept art. They do and you’ll be blind as a bat if you don’t see a difference in the level of “finish”.

Diablo 3 released on 09/09/09?

Diablo 3 release date has been a hot topic and we’ve all heard the usual Blizzard rhetoric that Diablo 3 will come out WHEN the game is ready.

First, some background: a guy who played Diablo 2 for years got a DOL rune and experimented with it until it crushed the game. He got an error message … a series of meaningless numbers. Or are they?

64 69 61 62 6c 6f 20 33 20 20 30 39 2f 30 39 2f 30 39.

So why is this significant in ANY way? OK, this is the geek part: 64 69 61 62 6c 6f 20 33 20 20 30 39 2f 30 39 2f 30 39 is hex for : Diablo 3 09/09/09. That means that if you translate the hexadecimal code, it gives you Diablo 3’s release date.

Now, the critical part. How likely is that Diablo 2 developers knew in advance when Diablo 3 will be released? NOT LIKELY. At the same time, if I were head of development at Blizzard and I was a bit of a numerology freak… I’d pick EXACTLY this date. Why?

Well, it’s pretty obvious. 09-09-09 represents 666 if you turn it upside down. The number of the beast! (cue the Iron Maiden song here)