My count of the rumors regarding the fourth character can be boiled down to two:

• Ranged character – the parallel is to the rogue in the Diablo I and the Amazon in Diablo 2
• Knight – similar to the Warrior in Diablo and the Paladin in Diablo 2

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!

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.

Get into the Diablo 3 beta!

You get an email the second Blizzard announce the Diablo 3 beta.

For those of us impatient enough (isn’t that everyone?), a Diablo III custom map has been released.

You need Warcraft III in order to play it and the map is still in beta. However, I’m really amazed at the graphics – the world editor is indeed powerful enough to change the game completely. It does look like Diablo III.

Download Diablo 3 beta map

P.S. Maybe it was my bad luck with skill selection as a Wizard but even the first wave of zombies proved insurmountable for me!

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.

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.

The environments that they like are: deserts and wastelands, forests, ancient ruins, and corrupted regions. They didn’t like Hell (Act IV) and think it was done in a hurry with only two waypoints.

I tend to agree - Act IV seems a bit dull compared to the others. However, my list of worst environments is easily topped by the jungles of Kurast! The pygmies were a NIGHTMARE for my Ice Sorceress!

Think again. They are now thinking of “monetizing” the new version of Battle.net.

Initially, I thought “oh, we had banner ads in battle.net before, no problem”. Here’s from the horse’s mouth (Rob Pardo interview):

So Julian Wilson told us that you guys are looking monetize Battle.Net in some way. Is that right?

Wow, that’s an evil way of putting it. Julian’s turning into a business guy on me. Here’s the way I would put it. We’re definitely not looking at turning Diablo into a subscription based game…

With Battle.Net we’re definitely looking at possible different features that we might be able to do for additional money… I think World of Warcraft is a great example to look at. We charge people if they want to switch servers or if they want name changes, things that aren’t core to the game experience, they’re really just optional things that some people want.

OK, that’s a relief: Diablo 3 isn’t a subscription game; changing your name to GobbleCoque is going to cost $29.

However, I still get a bit suspicious of Blizzard’s “innovation” when it comes to pricing. After Starcraft 2 is split into three separate games we need to purchase separately, I wonder if Diablo 3 is going to be the same way.

Purchase Acts I and II for $49 and then shell more money for Acts III, IV and V which are entirely optional. Optional in the sense you option OUT of all the end-game bosses, equipment, etc.

The Wizard skills revealed thus far are:

• Disintegrate – constant ray of energy going through multiple enemies
• Electrocute – chain lightning
• Teleport – blink about half a screen away
• Magic Missile – single target damage spell
• Slow Time – creates a sphere that slows down projectiles (very similar to the Protoss Mothership skill)

You can watch the Wizard in action at Blizzard’s site here.

You can download the high-quality version from Blizzard’ssite.