Diablo 3 box

I've seen plenty of BAD fake trailers for Diablo 3. I wonder who in their right might would think this is an ACTUAL box for Diablo 3!

Believe me - the discussion on some forums still rages on ...

Activision Blizzard

You've probably heard it already but here's the summary:

Activision, Inc. and Vivendi have announced that they will combine Vivendi Games, Vivendi's interactive entertainment business which includes Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft, with Activision, creating the world's largest online and console game publisher, the total transaction being worth more than US$18.9 Billion.

Hmm, I wonder if this would change anything in terms of how Blizzard develops its games. I sincerely hope they don't start licensing their game "worlds" to allow Activision to create second-rate games. I want Diablo 3 but I don't want a broken game... (Vivendi already announced once that Diablo 3 is going to be an MMO).

Medusa project demystified

Remember when just before Starcraft 2 was announced, there was a rumor about a Medusa demo.

Some people thought it could be something related to Diablo 3 (I wish!). The mystery is over - courtesy of Kotaku:

Sigaty, Starcraft 2’s lead producer, told me that the original codename for Starcraft 2 was “alpha”, but when the game was nearing alpha they decided to change it.

“We couldn’t say that alpha was hitting alpha, so we needed another name,” he said. They settled on Medusa.

This isn’t another Diablo 3 rumor. It’s just setting the record straight!

E3: More Diablo 3 hints?

E3 has been tamer this year. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing happening there.

Gamasutra has an interview with Frank Pearce, founding member and senior vice president of product development for Blizzard.

Here a bit from the interview:

“Our global headcount is 2,700,” said Pearce, “And most of that is customer service for World of Warcraft! In terms of development staff it’s probably around 350. World of Warcraft is about 135 people, 40 for Starcraft II, 40 for team 3, our cinematics team is about 85 guys. Then there’s sound and Q/A and that sort of thing.”

When pressed for details regarding the new project, Pearce was cagey. “Team 3 is working on something really awesome. I can’t give you any hints, but it’s totally awesome.”

All attempts to extract additional information were understandably met with looks of shock and horror from Blizzard’s director of global public relations, who also attended the meeting.

With Blizzcon just a few days away, I wonder if Blizzard are warming up to a formal announcement of this mysterious third project.

E3: More Diablo 3 hints?

E3 has been tamer this year. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing happening there.

Gamasutra has an interview with Frank Pearce, founding member and senior vice president of product development for Blizzard.

Here a bit from the interview:

“Our global headcount is 2,700,” said Pearce, “And most of that is customer service for World of Warcraft! In terms of development staff it’s probably around 350. World of Warcraft is about 135 people, 40 for Starcraft II, 40 for team 3, our cinematics team is about 85 guys. Then there’s sound and Q/A and that sort of thing.”

When pressed for details regarding the new project, Pearce was cagey. “Team 3 is working on something really awesome. I can’t give you any hints, but it’s totally awesome.”

All attempts to extract additional information were understandably met with looks of shock and horror from Blizzard’s director of global public relations, who also attended the meeting.

With Blizzcon just a few days away, I wonder if Blizzard are warming up to a formal announcement of this mysterious third project.

Diablo the Movie

News |
Trailer |
Pictures |
Games |
Soundtrack

Cast |
Awards |
Reviews |
Downloads |
Wallpapers |
Posters |
Documentary

Uber Diablo a taste of things to come?

I’ve been thinking lately about the new content that Blizzard added to Diablo 2 with the Pandemonium Event (i.e. the Diablo 2 Ubers).

I’ve heard many arguments that it’s not REALLY new content as Blizzard have just taken a few bosses and made their uber versions. For example, they’ve used Andariel’s model to create Lilith who shares very similar spells and effects.

That is one way to look at it. However, lets turn to the year(s) preceding World of Warcraft’s launch. Blizzard created a special “custom” campaign (The Founding of Durotar) for Warcraft III that used the game engine BUT simulated WoW in terms of gameplay. The quest structure, the items (epic, legendary, etc), even the levelling.

Come to think of it, I might have enjoyed the campaign MORE than I have enjoyed WoW. You could control three heroes plus summoned creatures and henchmen, the quests made sense (i.e. not repetitive), and the items were pretty powerful.

That’s not my point though. My point is that what Blizzard has done with patch 1.11 is test the realms for the style of gameplay that their next-gen MMO (lets call it Diablo III: Heaven and Hell) will feature.

This looks a long shot now but come back in a year and we’ll see. I definitely think Blizzard’s next-gen MMO should feature top SOLO content in addition to raid content.

I do expect to kill Diablo even as a casual SOLO player. Surviving the fight might be a 10% chance and loot might be just a few greens but I’d like to see Diablo go down. Amen.

Diablo site update

I've just updated the Diablo site, so here's the updated sitemap:

Diablo Home
Diablo Downloads
Diablo Cheats
Diablo Item Editor
Diablo Hero Editor
Diablo Hellfire expansion
Diablo Story
Diablo Heroes
Diablo Spells
Diablo Items
Unique Items
Diablo Quests
Diablo Monsters
Diablo Guides

Diablo 3 listing

Just got word that the BOTW directory included a Diablo 3 blog to it's structure. Great news indeed. Also, the updated Diablo sitemap. Includes Diablo 1, Diablo 2, and Diablo 3.

More Diablo 3 rumors

Gamespot’s coverage of Starcraft 2 has been spot on. At the same time, IGN has got it wrong before when it comes to Diablo 3, so I take these articles with a grain of salt.

In essence, Rob Pardo talks how Starcraft 2 is one of the smaller projects currently in Blizzard:

Pardo also dropped a hint at the scale of Blizzard’s future plans, saying that the 40 developers working on Starcraft II are “one of the smaller teams.” Job listings on the Blizzard site have indicated it is working on a “next-gen MMO”–which the company said will not be another World of Warcraft. Also, rumors persist that Diablo III is in development.

Now, Paul Sams also said something similar - that Blizzard is working on three projects.

Here’s how I interpret it - Diablo 3 and the next-gen MMO are probably the same thing. After all, what’s better than a MMO in the Diablo universe? You got Heaven and Hell as factions… you got an Epic conflict that’s going to dwarf everything that WoW has. Frankly, who cares about Illidan when the can go after Diablo.