Archive for the ‘Blizzard’ Category
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009
With BlizzCon ‘09 coming next month, you don’t have to be a genius to tell that Blizzard will have to make some kind of Diablo 3 announcement.
My count of the rumors regarding the fourth character can be boiled down to two:
Believe it or not, there’s speculation that the Knight is out of the question for Diablo 3 and that Blizzard would like to introduce a truly unique character, like … a Vampire!
I’m betting my money on the ranged character, could be called Ranger or Hunter. A pet is NOT out of the question, though that could be my WoW Hunter talking!
Posted in Blizzard, Diablo 3 News, Diablo 3 gameplay, Diablo 3 in the media, Diablo 3 rumors, Diablo 3 screenshots | No Comments »
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009
According to BlizzPlanet, Blizzard has not stated officially that Battle.net 2.0 is going to be free.
However, Blizzard is known for its vague comments when it comes to monetization:
Are there any plans to monetize Battle.net 2.0 service? Mike Morhaime limited to answer: “I’m not ready to talk about that today”. Mike Morhaime confirmed that Battle.net 2.0 will be free to those who buy StarCraft 2 retail.
Of course, you need to remember that Starcraft 2 is coming out not in one but in THREE retails boxes (for a total of around $100). So even one measly box gets you into Battle.net 2.0 for life? I’ll take it.
Posted in Blizzard, Diablo 3 News, Diablo 3 gameplay, Diablo 3 in the media, Diablo 3 rumors, Diablo 3 screenshots | No Comments »
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009
Remember past Blizzcons when we wondered if that horn is Diablo’s? Or anything else that looked like a clue that Diablo 3 will be announced?
Well, Diablo 3 takes center stage at this Blizzcon! The Barbarian is displayed prominently on the homepage (next to something green looking like a Starcraft II ghost).
OK, a few bullet points about Blizzcon 2009!
- Tickets will go on sale worldwide on Saturday, May 16 for $125 each
- Blizzcon 2009 will be held on August 21 and 22 in Anaheim, California
- You get a unique WoW (non-combat) pet – Grunty the murloc marine
- Global finals for the 2009 Warcraft III and WoW Arena will be held – finalists get top prize of $25,000 per player
If you’re not able to attend, there’s the poor man’s Blizzcon – live Directv coverage for just $39.95. You do the murloc marine pet, so if you need a green/blue blob around you at all times, make sure you give your hard-earned cash to Blizzard.
Posted in Blizzard, Diablo 3 News, Diablo 3 gameplay, Diablo 3 in the media, Diablo 3 rumors, Diablo 3 screenshots | No Comments »
Thursday, February 12th, 2009
Jay Wilson stated in an interview that dungeons will be randomly generated – in true Diablo tradition. Btw, Jay is Diablo 3 lead designer.
Outdoors will be persistent, however, and will not change from game to game. In other words, you can use landmarks in multiplayer as meeting places. I.e. Meet me by the river ford.
CG: Are the dungeons still going to be randomly generated?
JW: All the dungeons’ layouts are randomly generated. The exteriors are not. We have a new system of adventures that allows us to cut sections out of the terrain to put random — whatever — in there. We can put random terrain, we can put in scripted events — we wanted to add a lot more scripted events into the game.
So expect that outdoor monsters could be heavily scripted (as the terrain stays constant). They could run to a chest, get a bigger axe and come back.
The other thing I’d like to see in Diablo 3 is getting better, bigger “rogue camps”. Come on, Jay, you can make a city that’s more than 3 houses. Let’s hope that Caldium (picture right) is that city.
Tags: Blizzard, diablo, diablo 3, dungeon, gameplay, jay wilson, monsters, outdoor
Posted in Blizzard, Diablo 3 News, Diablo 3 in the media, Diablo 3 links, Diablo 3 rumors, Diablo 3 screenshots, Diablo 3 videos | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
A week ago I posted that Diablo 2 is back on the sales chart. I also posted that if you want a copy, you don’t need to purchase a retail copy for $55 (for the Battle chest) or $35 (for Diablo 2 and LoD).
You can purchase a Diablo 2 CD key for just $5 online. Once you have your CD KEY, you go to Blizzard’s online store, you register and then proceed to DOWNLOAD your copies of Diablo 2 and LoD.
Update: You can purchase a cheap Diablo 2 cd key here: link 1 and link 2.
Tags: battlechest, Blizzard, CD, cd key, diablo, diablo 2
Posted in Blizzard, Diablo 3 News | 2 Comments »
Friday, January 9th, 2009
The runes (thought not runewords) make a return to Diablo 3. They’ll still drop from monsters, however, they will be used in a way that’s VERY different from Diablo 2.
OK, let’s go over how runes worked in Diablo 2. There are 33 runes that drop from monsters. Note that some runes drop often while others drop extremely (e.g. Zod rune). Also, there are items with sockets that are able to take runes (or jewels). Some rune combinations (called runewords) create Runic Items, which are among the most powerful items in the game.
For example, socketing the runes Hel + Ohm + Um + Lo + Cham gives your axe or hammer a whole bunch of additional stats and it also adds the label “Doom”.
OK, so what are the changes to the runes in Diablo 3? Runes will still be used to CUSTOMIZE your character, however, runes no longer modify ITEMS. Instead they’ll be added to skills (each skill has a single rune slot).
Also, to make runes easier to use, rune names will be changed to reflect their effect, e.g. Rune of Multistriking. How does this affect gameplay?
For example, a Minor Multistrike Rune attached to the Skull of Flame will make projectile skip along the ground once , but higher quality Runes like the Major Multistrike Rune may raise the amount of bounces and the distance traveled by the projectile.
Jay Wilson, Diablo 3 Lead designer, expressed his strong desire to make each skill customizable while at the same time retaining the uniqueness of each character. In other words, he doesn’t want the Barbarian to be able to mimic the Wizard by adding certain runes to skills.
Tags: diablo, diablo 3, gameplay, jay wilson, rinewords, runes, skills
Posted in Blizzard, Diablo 3 News, Diablo 3 gameplay, Diablo 3 in the media, Diablo 3 rumors | No Comments »
Sunday, January 4th, 2009
Now, prepare to be surprised by some of the reasoning behind this “news”. 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)
Tags: diablo, diablo 3, release, release date
Posted in Blizzard, Diablo 3 News, Diablo 3 humor, Diablo 3 in the media, Diablo 3 rumors | 28 Comments »
Friday, December 12th, 2008
A Diablo 3 Community Manager requested community feedback on Diablo 3 items and their names. See if you can contribute…
Remember those useless properties on some Diablo 2 items? Well, no more of that. You can go to battle.net and help brainstorm some of the affixes and modifiers for items. Go to forum.
Here’s an item to get your creative juices flowing!
Tags: Blizzard, diablo, diablo 2, diablo 3, items, modifiers, properties
Posted in Blizzard, Diablo 3 News, Diablo 3 in the media, Diablo 3 rumors | 3 Comments »
