Diablo II 0. 1.13 PTR is LIVE

Great news for Diablo II lovers. Diablo II 0. 1.13 PTR and available for download. Read more at the battle.net forums.

“We traveled for an eternity...” - Marius

Travel no longer my friends - the Diablo II 1.13 Public Test Realm is LIVE!

A new Mystery has been revealed!

- Players of Hell Difficulty Realm games are hereby warned once again,
that a series of new and challenging tests await you! The answer lies
within Diablo's Bosses, which span across the world from the Den of Evil
to the Throne of Destruction... 

New poll: Guess the release month of Diablo 3?

It seems that 2010 is out of the calculation. And most of you think the release quarter will be Q4. So here is a new poll for you: Which month of Q4 2011 will Diablo III be released. Lets the speculation begin now. You can vote on the Poll section at the sidebar.

Diablo 3 release date pattern (if there is such) seems to be cracked

Diablo X seems to have cracked the Diablo 3 release date pattern:

So if you look back at Diablo I, that was released in 1996 and Diablo 2: LoD (Lords of Destruction) in 2001, and lets set Diablo III release date 2011, it would fit exactly 15 year anniversary for Diablo I & 10 Year for Diablo 2:LoD.

Presentation sais "Diablo III’s Not Coming in 2010"

Unfortunately:

A recent Blizzard presentation listed Diablo III as arriving in the “next few years,” along with StarCraft II’s expansions and Blizzard’s next massively multiplayer cash cow. In store for “next year,” meanwhile, are StarCraft II and WoW: Cataclysm. The bottom line? No loot-grabbing and Satan-stabbing until – at the earliest – 2011. Unless, of course, Diablo III goes into full-on beta mode next year, but we’re not getting our hopes up.

Diablo III Features – October 2008 (from Diablo III Fansite Kit)

Diablo III General

Q: What is Diablo III?

A: We’re developing Diablo III to be the definitive action role-playing game, and a true continuation of the Diablo series. Players will adventure through rich and varied settings, unraveling an epic storyline, engaging in combat with hordes of monsters and challenging bosses, growing in experience and ability, and acquiring items of incredible power. Diablo III will be a fitting sequel to Diablo II, with the easy interface, fast-paced action, and visceral gameplay that Diablo players have come to expect and enjoy. It will also include many new features that will take the Diablo action-RPG experience to the next level.

Diablo III Fansite Kit

Blizzard released Diablo III Fansite Kit.

This downloadable package contains the following content, including some exclusive assets:

• Art assets including concept art, hi-res logos, and wallpapers
• Site design elements including borders, backgrounds, fonts, and stylesheets
• Exclusive content: Forum avatars / Messenger images
• Diablo III fact sheet and FAQ
• Sample Diablo III text content
• Site building tips 

The package certainly looks very impressive.

Interview with Julian Love

An interesting interview with Julian Love appeared on diablo-source

A few weeks ago we were lucky enough to get an interview with Diablo 3 Lead Technical Artist Julian Love. We talked about many different things from artwork feedback from Blizzcon, Battle.net 2.0 to PvP. Without further a due here is our interview with Julian Love.

On Twitter

Female monk is moving from concept to in-game model.

Scratch that. That development update was a bit backdated. Female monk model is now being handed off for animations.

Another Diablo 3 release data speculation

Malfore has nice speculation article about the release date of Diablo III.

I was browsing the web when I ran across an interesting theory on the Diablo 3 release date. I'm 100% sure it's not true, but the fact that someone went through all the trouble to come up with something so intricate is quite impressive. I had to post it here for everyone to see. If you're the kind of person that loves conspiracy theories or detective story, then you'll like this.

Diablo 3 release date poll

Ok. According to the poll results, most of you think (or at least hope) that Diablo 3 will be released at 2010.

It's time for the next question:

At which quarter of 2010 will Diablo 3 be released? You can place your vote at the right.

On Twitter

Female wizard continuing to have her armor looks defined, and variant textures created.

On Twitter

Aside from the main storyline there are a lot of optional random quests. RT @Markatansky: Will there be plenty of side-quests in #Diablo3?

On Twitter

#Diablo3 bottom bar UI redesign in-progress focused on redesigning the potion interface to be easier to use.

Blizzard revealed their new website design.

Blizzard Entertainment has just revealed their newly-refurbished website that brings out the better community elements that exist for their upcoming Battle.net 2.0 service.

The Road to Diablo III

Gamasutra has nice article about how Diablo III comes to life.

To get a sense of how that design process works -- and when the team knows it's actually done -- Gamasutra sat down with two Diablo development leads: lead technical artist Julian Love, a Blizzard North veteran, and lead content designer Kevin Martens, who spent nearly a decade at BioWare before coming to Blizzard.

All Character Skill Trees

All known characters' skill trees are presented here.

The trees shown at this year’s Blizzcon had considerably fewer skills listed than the Barbarian and Wizard trees did last year. All the trees this year had around 30-36 skills, while the Barbarian and Wizard had over 50 last year. Some of the missing skills became redundant when the tree design changed from 3 separate trees to one big 3-part tree, but it’s also likely that additional skills are in the game, but aren’t being shown to us yet. We do not believe this is anything near the fully final game skill listing.

Diablo 3 2008 Movie Trailer Blizzard Worldwide Invitational

Diablo 3 2008 Movie Trailer Blizzard Worldwide Invitational.

Diablo III review from PAX

Cinemablend has a nice review of Diablo III at PAX

The first thing to notice about Diablo III is that it looks insanely good and runs incredibly smoothly.

Diablo 3 has new art director

According to this thread, Diablo 3's new art director is Christian Lichtner. Check his official webiste at http://www.liquidology2.com/.

5-th class in Diablo The Viking ?

The 5-th mysterious class in Diablo 3 could be the Viking.

Ten things you absolutely need to know about the Monk

IGN has compiled a great list of things about the new Diablo 3 class, the Monk:

- The unveiling of the Monk came as a pleasant surprise at this year's Blizzcon, as – hell – he's just a cool character class, complete with stylish looks, speedy combat and a compelling combo system. Plus, the Monk offers up a completely different style of melee play to the Barbarian. We've spent a solid couple of hours mucking around with the Monk, and these are ten of the things we learned...

What will be the final Diablo 3 class?

You can check some speculations from this article:

In the past, game director Jay Wilson has said that the class selection was contentious even among the Diablo team.
Wilson said at Blizzcon that his team doesn’t yet have a final concept for the fifth class, and that they recently changed their minds about it.

Music compilation featuring Diablo 3 and Starcraft 3 music

You can order the compilation from its official website.

Echoes of War Standard Edition Now Available
The new re-issue of Eminence Symphony Orchestra?s two-disc Echoes of War: The Music of Blizzard Entertainment standard edition has now arrived. The album features 15 unique arrangements, with several pieces from the yet-to-be-released StarCraft II and Diablo III. Ninety minutes of music are featured in all, with bonus tracks arranged by special guests including the critically-acclaimed composer Kow Otani. The new standard edition package, showcasing a redesigned cover art piece, will be available in major retail outlets for $24.98. The Legendary Edition is also available online and at retail for $49.98, and comes with a bonus documentary DVD, nine art cards, and a bonus 32-page booklet. Visit the official Echoes of War website or participating retailer to hear samples, learn more, and order your copy today.

Diablo I & Diablo II working on Windows 7

Thinktechno points out that Diablo I and Diablo II are working on the upcoming release of Microsoft's latest OS, Windows 7.

Towns in Diablo 3

The towns revealed in Diablo 3 so far are:

Bear's Hill, Bramwell, Brennor, Caldeum, Duncraig, Gea Kul, ,Gellan's Pass, Hillsfar, Kehjan, Kingsport, Kurast, New Tristram, Partha, Seram, Sescheron, Seekers Point, Toraja, Tran Athulua, Tristram, Tu'r Du'lra, Tulisam, Ureh,
Westmarc;

Diablo III Monk skill tree

diii.net has a comprehensive posting on the Monk's skill tree.

The Monk’s skills were an odd mixture at Blizzcon this year. There were only 8 of them, spread over 3 generically-named skill trees, but all of the skills in the game seemed very polished and worked nicely. I suspect that a lot of others are done but were held back to retain more surprises, and that lots of others must be in the “under construction” phase. There were no skills shown with icon and description, and a “disabled” tag, as was true for the other characters.

Diablo III available for preorder

Diablo III is now available for pre-order at GameStop.

One more class expected in Diablo 3

One more character class is expected in Diablo 3 according to this article in IGN:

IGN: Have you confirmed how many unrevealed classes there are, to round out the entire party?

Jay Wilson: There's one more.

Diablo 3 will restrict content in some countries

According to interview in Wired, Blizzard is gonna cenzor some of the game aspects for countries like Germany and Australia:

Wired.com: You’ll obviously have to edit content for regions like Germany and Australia, but what about China? Is that a more difficult case?
Wilson: Definitely for regions like Germany and Australia, we will have to change blood if we’re going to sell there. And that’s fine. Those are the standards for those regions, and we don’t really have a problem with catering to what they need and what they want. But China’s going to be hard for us. Because a lot of the restrictions there are really… we may not be able to do them. It may not be possible. With our relationship with NetEase, we recently got new information about what China really wants, and it’s a lengthy list. It’s really hard for us to cater to. We’ll try. There’s no reason we wouldn’t want to go there, but there is a certain point where we’d have to redo so much of the game that it’s not viable anymore.

Diablo III for consoles?

According to bit-tech, Blizzard is planning to release Diablo III also for consoles (PS3 / XBox).

In fact, according to Blizzard's Paul Sams, Blizzard isn't just hypothetically interested in bringing the dungeon romp to consoles and has actually entered into discussions with the first-party console makers. That's according to GameTrailers TV presenter Geoff Keighley, who uncovered the news recently.

BlizzCon recap

SpoonCraft makes nice recap of Diablo III coverage on BlizzCon.

I got the distinct chance to play Diablo 3 while at Blizzcon and I was pretty taken aback. Last year in 2008 when I played Diablo 3 it was a really gritty and unpolished game, it looked like crap in all honesty and felt like crap. It was pretty much the exact tired gameplay experience that we’ve been playing for so many years with Diablo 2. Blizzard has done A LOT of work since then.

When will Diablo 3 be released?

That's the question, we all keep asking. As Blizzard is not giving us an answer, let's try to guess the date. Use the poll at the right to place your bet for Diablo 3 release date.

Gameaxis hands-on Diablo 3

Another Diablo 3 review here:


BlizzCon 2009: Hands On With Diablo 3

The game is still simple as hell to play, you can get pretty far just left or right click spamming your attacks on things. Our demo was set up with a close range melee attack on the left click, and a long range/AE attack on the right. Buffs and other spells/moves were hotkeyed to 1,2 and 3.

One more hands-on review

One more hands-on Diablo 3 review. This time it's coming from IGN:

GC 2009: Diablo III Hands-On

Even though Diablo III is presumably over a year away from a release date, this game absolutely oozes polish. It runs at a silky smooth framerate (at least on the PCs Blizzard brought to Gamescom), the animations of your characters and magical effects and the deaths of enemies are smooth, detailed, and full of character, and the combat gives you a great sense of weight and impact. This was my first time getting to actually play Diablo III, and as a big fan of the previous games, it was very much along the lines of what I was hoping for.

Diablo II Sountrack

Great! You can listen the Diablo II Sountrack at grooveshark for free.

Diablo 3 hads-on demo previews from BlizCon

Two websites managed to get their hands on Diablo 3 demo during BlizCon and published their first impressions:


1UP.com: Diablo III Demo Preview

It's been a long time coming, but finally, here on the show floor at Gamescom, I got my first chance to play Diablo 3. I'll cut straight to it: It was an almost religious experience. Within moments, all my hopes and expectations for a modern Diablo sequel were met. It's a fine line -- on the one hand, you want all the familiar pieces that made the prior two games so addictive. And on the other hand, there's the evolution of other action-RPG games in the intervening time since Diablo 2. 

Kotaku: Diablo III Demo Preview

We just played Diablo III. For fifteen painfully brief minutes, our lady Barbarian tore through hordes of Fallen, clicking them back to the Hell they came from. It was good.

First ingame screenshots

Here are same ingame screenshots for your viewing pleasure:

 

  

And one video of the Monk character:

First demo of Diablo 3 shown at BlizzCon

According gameplanet, First demo of Diablo3 was shown during the BlizzCon. Unfortunately the game was announced for post 2010. So we all wait.

Diablo 3 System Requirements

Diablo III's system requirements are expected to be:

For PC:
Operating System: Windows XP/ Vista
Processor: 1.4GHz or higher CPU.
RAM: 1Gb or more.
Video:  128Mb video card Dx9
Hard Drive Space: 4-8GB

For Mac:
Operating System: MacOS X 10.3 (Panther) or better.
Processor:1.6GHz or higher.
RAM: 1Gb or higher, DDR RAM recommended.
Video: 128mb ATI or NVIDIA video card
Hard Drive Space: 4-8 GB

Fortunately quite low, I can say.

Update: The real system requrements are posted on battle.net.

Diablo III release date expected at christmas

The third volume of the Diablo saga is expected to be released somewhere around Christmas this year.

Of course this is all according to the rumours.

5-th class in Diablo 3 is announced ?

The 5-th class in Diablo 3 is the Archivist... or Blizzard are just fooling us.

The archivist's eyes searched for an opening, a weakness. His hands wrenched suddenly about his adversary and a sickening crack pierced the still air. Its spine broken, the book lay unmoving in the archivist's now gentle grip. As he lifted its lifeless form into the dim light, the pages of the ancient tome fell open, the secrets of the text laid bare. I remember the words he read, the religious fervor of his voice: "Here begins the first chronicle of the life of holy Akarat, prophet of Zakarum...." And on the shelves that stood all around him, tome after tome waited.