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.