We'll be performing maintenance on the auction house on February 14, from 10:00 a.m. PT until approximately 11:00 a.m. PT. During this time the auction house is intended to remain available, but some interruption may occur.

We’ll be placing extra strain on the beta auction house every day this week from 10:00 a.m. PST until approximately 12:00 p.m. PST, to put the system through its paces. During this time there may be interruptions or loss in an ability to use the auction house. We’ll provide updates if there’s any extended downtime experienced or expected.

On behalf of the Diablo III development team, we wish you a very happy Valentine's Day
What an auspicious occasion for Gluttony Incarnate.
Be Mine... For All Eternity. http://t.co/TgZMhwRx

Round 4 of the #DiabloBeta sweepstakes ends Monday 1/16/12 @ 11:59pm PST. Get your entry in today! Details here:

Are there anymore updates to the battletag system?

They'll be coming soon. The current restrictions are most definitely unintended. (Source)

Will Gheed or gambling be making a return in Diablo 3?

Neither. Although crafting has enough randomization that it's pretty close to D2 gambling. (Source)

In regards to Inferno, will we have to go through the whole game another time, or can we start farming anywhere, such as Act IV?

You will. Current design is that it will not all be available at the start, it will function like previous difficulties. (Source)

What happened to the BlizzCasts, it's been quite some time since the last one? Can we expect new episodes?

Hrm that's true. We were planning to have one for the #D3 release. We all now where that is... :) (Source)

What does Polish mean?
It's making sure everything is perfect. We're not really in a strictly polishing phase yet though, although certainly that's true for some areas of the game. Still, we're in the process of working on some rather large game system changes, some of which we'll be sharing shortly before or with the next beta patch.

So this means that once those large game system changes are set, that will be the time when the D3 team goes in the "strictly polishing" phase?
I wouldn't get hung up on thinking about it that way. It's a big game and each individual piece may be at some different level of development.

So is the rune system set and is currently being implemented entirely?
Not yet. Once we have an implementation and we're at least moderately sure it's going to work out we'll share all the details.

re far are you guys (generally) from being able to ship a game that is polished? In other words is it still an early 2012 planned release?
We don't know. We were shooting for the end of 2011, and now we're shooting for first quarter 2012. As soon as we're sure of something (release date or otherwise) we'll be sure to let you know.

All messaging for #DiabloBeta's 2nd round winners has been sent out at this time. Congratulations to the winners! (Source)

All #D3 beta keys for our #Blizzard_ANZ contest have now been sent. Congrats to the lucky entries! (Source)

It's the ideal situation. Random dungeons, random monsters, random item drops, all of these things throw huge wrenches into any ability to really finely tune a level progression. You may very well have to stay in Hell for a while longer to hit 60, or you may want to go back through certain areas of Normal to gear up better before moving to Nightmare. We're simply not going to be able to get it right for everyone with all of these random elements, but we're trying.
It's also going to just make good sense to stick around and play a bit more Hell and gear up before attempting Inferno even if you are 60.

GameSpot: With people dissecting the lore, and you as a team cautious of making it too predictable, have you found yourself in the position where you've changed content because players have already guessed how it will play out?


Leonard Boyarsky: No, not really. We figured out what we wanted our story to be, and pretty much stuck to it. If some people guess what we're doing, that just means they'll be pleasantly surprised. Sadly, it's a minority of people who really care deeply about the lore. There are a lot of people out there who do care deeply about the lore, but, in terms of our overall fan base, it's not the top thing on people's list. I think that the kind of people who really care about the lore and delve into that will feel proud if they feel like they figured it out. We haven't seen a lot of people make correct guesses, by the way! [Laughs] (Source)

Real Money Auction House
The reason for the RMAH being implemented is not because we want to force you all to use it, this is because we want to give you a safe, secure and Blizzard supported way of selling and buying Diablo items using real currency. If you choose not to use it because you feel it would have an ill-effect on your gameplay or for any other reason, then you do not need to. I do not feel that there is a requirement to segregate players who choose to and do not choose to use this service as it might diminish player experience or cause other problems. For example, if your friend wants to use the RMAH and you don’t, then you cannot play with them :(

It is our goal with all of our games to ensure that players have a highly enjoyable experience when playing. Due to this, we will not remove the gold Auction House, so that people can play the way they want to. One of the most important parts of the Diablo series is to obtain the best possible gear. In the past, some players would use external and potentially dangerous methods to perform real-money transactions for gear and gold in Diablo such as third-party real-money-trading organizations.

The transactions between these third-party organisations and players generally went awry, and led to a poor player experience as well as a large number of customer-service issues such as scams and item or account theft. Because we feel that it would be best to offer players an in-game and Blizzard certified way to perform these transactions in a safe and secure manner, we decided to implement the RMAH.

So just to re-iterate, even in Diablo 1 and 2, players were buying gear and gold with real-world currency, it's just more visible and safe now. It will be no different than in the past, in that you do not have to use real money at all to improve your character, however if you do decide to, it will now be much more safe and secure.

I hope this explains why we don’t want to remove one Auction house or the other, nor segregate the player bases.


Whats to stop spam bots shouting "X item in RMAH £14 now"

It's not really possible for people to spam players easily, to do so they will need to either have your Battle.Net as a friend or BattleTag ID and personally contact you. They can also go into your game if its public and talk there, or in a public channel you are in. If they do any of those though, you can simply ignore them and they will miss out in becoming friends or communicating with fine people such as yourselves.


The question I was trying to ask was how are you going to keep the two in balance?

Well, glad you asked :)
Inflation in a particular currency is fine, and for things to increase on price depending on demand is good, however as you are asking about; we do not want worthless currency.

Take for example (excuse the comparison) WoW, gold is heavily inflated but people still use it for everything, just more of it. We have many tools to ensure gold remains a worthy currency in comparison to the RMAH and vice versa. Do not worry, we will be very carefully keeping an eye out for problems with inflation and one AH becoming less valuable ^^ We have many knobs and controls at our disposal to ensure that everything works out fine! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Thank you for voicing your concerns, Starbird. I realize you and many other people are excited to play the game, and are probably feeling a bit let down that we haven’t yet announced a release date. While you bring up a number of points of speculation, I just want to cut right to it and state that the reason we don’t have a release date yet is because the game isn’t yet where we want it to be in terms of our quality standards. We aren’t holding it back on account of any one piece of the game, or for any other outside factors. While it is indeed playable from beginning to end, we’re still actively working on many individual game elements and the ways that they interact with one another, with a great deal of iterative tweaking, balancing, polishing, adjusting, redesigning, and retesting going on. We’re going to continue beta testing, and before too long that’s going to include a large influx of new invites.

Much of this iteration obviously takes place behind closed doors, so I can sympathize with the concerns about the lack of visible progress, and the sentiment that we should just go ahead and ship the game. Until we’re able to reveal more of the results, I can only assure you that we are indeed working on critical game systems that directly impact the core of the experience.

I also realize a lot of people were hoping for a release date announcement at the VGAs. We’re simply not going to be able to dispel or comment on release date rumors and speculation every time someone expects an announcement. We’ll be announcing a release date when we determine the game is ready, and not holding it back just to line it up with any particular game-industry event.

The bottom line is that development of our games and preparations for release are long and complicated. We’re just as excited to get the final version into your hands as you are to play it, but making sure it lives up to our quality standards will always be the most important factor in that process.


Why not make the beta open now. Mayby all the hard fans can have a chance to ploay before release.?

The service currently available is a single test site, it just couldn't hold that many people. While we'd certainly like to make people happy, it wouldn't be a good experience, and frankly letting people try the game is not the purpose of the beta test.


Also why not tell us what your working on fixing and let the people in the beta help?

Well most everyone already knows we're working on runestones still, and we have some other changes that are going to shake up characters a little bit. We'll be letting you know as soon as we're sure they'll work out at all, and then we're going to be asking everyone for feedback.

We'll be continuing to add players to beta as we need. We recognize that there are many people that want to be a part of helping out and we appreciate that. We just aren't able to provide any particular schedule for additions.

The ongoing, concerns on timing of the release are understandable, but in some cases are a bit overblown or overly pessimistic. We recognize that it's mostly due to anxiousness and the desire to get in and stomp demons, but as Bashiok said in his post, we'll release it when we're ready. We believe it will be worth it.

We appreciate all of the constant support and enthusiasm for Diablo III and it is something that continues to inspire us to make sure we release a game we can all be happy with and have many great adventures in.
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

We've resolved a number of issues affecting players both in the game and during log in, and we feel the Diablo III beta is fairly stable at this point. While we expect conditions to remain stable, we'll continue to monitor the service closely.

The Auction House should be functioning normally once again, though we will continue to monitor it carefully. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Just a few counter points to some of the discussions this has raised:
Simple tooltips benefit almost everyone. Just because they may not benefit you, they'll indirectly benefit you by helping non-gamers get into the game. Right now most of us are only thinking about when we play the game, but when the game is released, or quite possibly years down the road, you may want to be able to teach your dad, your daughter, your significant other to play. Simplified tooltips will certainly help when you walk away and they're trying to learn to play for themselves. And we can always hope they put stuff up on the auction house for way less than its worth! Mwahahahaa.

The in-game reference guide/book idea for skill and game information has a number of UI issues, but as a player of the game it's not a great solution because:

• You're not always in-game. More often than not when you're dissecting a skill at a massive level of detail you're on a website/forum discussing things, or you've got an excel spreadsheet open. Or you're getting in some extra Diablo time while at a friend's place. Or you're at work on your lunch break.
• A web page lets us present far more organized detail than an in-game book would allow (without ceasing to look like a web browser embedded in a book which would just look silly). You want tick rates, scaling formulas, proc interactoins, etc.
• A web site allows us to provide the most timely information. If questions come up on the forums, we make a hotfix, we find errors, or come across more information we'd like to pass along, we can get that information out to players immediately. If it was in-game it would require a patch. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Game Hunters: Diablo will be big part of the awards show. It's up for most anticipated game and there will be a new trailer, right?

Morhaime: Our cinematics team has been hard at work doing some really beautiful pre-rendered cinematics for Diablo III so I think this is the first one we are showing in its entirety. It's some pretty amazing work. We are really proud of that team. (Here's a link to the Blizzard site where the trailer resides.)

Game Hunters: Do we have a release date for the game yet?

Morhaime:  As soon as possible. We have pushed it into 2012. Really at this stage, it's about completing the polish on the game and preparing it for launch. As with any Blizzard game, we really try not to rush these things out. We try to give them time to bake. We are in beta right now, so we have a lot of people out there helping us test the game. We have been getting great feedback. People are really excited about it. (Source)

Diablo looks like a 2008 game
Blizzard games are intended to be accessible, and that's seen through game design as well as system spec requirements. It's not going to be pushing too many people's systems to the limits, which is the intent.We also tend to spend time on a visual style that we believe will be timeless. While the cutting edge FPS' of a few years ago quickly fall to the glitz of newer technologies, our intent is to create a beautiful game that doesn't age because it's not attempting to be a representation of reality. Good thing too, because we expect people to be playing it for a long time to come. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Guaranteed movement button
We just wanted to let you all know that this feedback that you have given on a dedicated click to move button is excellent, and we may implement this, the option for this would be unbound by default.   Sadly, this option would not be ready for when the game is shipped. While it would not be ready for ship if we do end up implementing it,  I hope that you are all glad to hear this news ^^ (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Durability Loss
You won't start taking durability loss for a few levels, not until level 8 or so. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Log in and authenticator
Authenticators aren't enabled in the Beta and won't be enabled until we launch D3 at retail. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Logged in waypoints and quests reset
Waypoints are tied to quests, so when you reset your quest, you reset your waypoints as well. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Daily Quests
The answer that we have for this right now is, no. There will not be daily quests in DIII in our current plans for the game :(

Diablo is not a game where it is meant to feel like a grind, where you have to log in every day and do your chores. It is a game where you can play when it is that you want to, without falling behind the curve :) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Inferno difficulty will be soloable
Anyone know for sure ..if inferno will require a team to be able to kill all bosses and farm gear?
Yes. Inferno mode will definitely be more difficult when soloing, but it can be done. We do not intend co-op to be a requirement :-) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blizzard And Europe
Beta Keys Availability
Beta keys are given out in the EU, they are distributed and given on as fair a basis as we can, as well as for the needs that we have for testing purposes. Please do note that not everyone in the US receives Beta keys for DIII, they are limited in the number they give out as well.

No Blue Posts on EU Forums
We post whenever we are able to, or if we have information pertinent for a thread that we spot. If we have no useful information for a given topic, then we will not comment; It's better to give no answer than a wrong one.

We do understand that this is a topic near and dear to everyone's heart, but do note that we forward on as much feedback as possible to the US and reply to as many threads as possible. As you may know, one of our companies core values is "Every Voice Matters", and this is something we always ensure is the case.

Paypal
We are always looking into new payment methods to use, if a certain payment method is not available in a particular region, there is a reason for it. If we are able to make a certain payment method available, then we will try our best to make it so. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Letting EU post on US forums and vice versa?
Sadly at this current point we have no plans to allow EU players to post on the US forums, unless they have a US account on their Battle.Net. This is because the forums are region-specific and just as you cannot play on the US servers for this reason, you cannot post on their forums either.

We understand you would like to contribute to discussions on the US forums, but if there is something being discussed there that you would like to participate in, feel free to make a thread on the EU forums about the same topic :) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

As you adventure through the exotic expanses of Kehjistan and plumb the treasure-filled depths of the Tristram Cathedral, you’re going to attract the attention of townsfolk who hear of your destiny to combat the demonic invasion. Some of them will be inclined to help you in your fight for the survival of Sanctuary…and a select few will serve as long-time companions,taking to your caravan as you cross the world and ensuring you’re always well armored and supplied: the Diablo III Artisans.

The Jeweler, Blacksmith, and Mystic are equipped to provide you with unique benefits and services. Each of these gifted crafters has received their own page complete with story, images of the visual progression of their camps, recipes, and key features.

Find out about these valuable cohorts and other new Diablo III features here.

Psyqo72: Got my beta key today, thank the gods! #Diablo3

Diablo: @Psyqo72 Congratulations. The #AngirisCouncil see potential in you. Do them proud and protect the lands with honor. #D3Beta #D3

In the next beta patch (currently scheduled to hit sometime next week), we will be turning off achievements to facilitate further service testing. During this time, characters will be unable to earn new achievements or complete any additional objectives of achievements already in-progress.

Please note that this will only be a temporary change, and that achievements will be available again in a later patch. We don't have an ETA for the release of the patch that re-implement achievements, but we’ll be sure to provide an update in the coming weeks.

...On a semi related note http://ow.ly/7PIs0 is coming out on the 13th December. I now know what I want for Christmas :)

PC Gamer: Did anything the players were doing in the beta surprise you? Did some guy just run around and kill stumps for an hour?

Wyatt Cheng: Some of the Skeleton King trips were pretty fast. We knew that the first time you kill the Skeleton King, you get a yellow item, and we’re not concerned, in the big picture, because later on you’ll be able to get yellow items from just about anywhere. But it definitely became the predominate way to try and farm (yellow) items. I think I saw somebody do a giant killstreak on the Jar of Souls event to get a huge XP bonus. He kited all the monsters from the entire dungeon into the Jar of Souls room, then started the JoS event and killed all the monsters from the level AND the JoS to get a huge killstreak bonus. That was pretty ridiculous.

Currency-Based AH now live
The currency-based auction house is now available with the release of Beta 7! This new auction house has replaced the gold one for now.

For more info and how to use the auction house, please visit: http://us.battle.net...opic/3196339628

For information on the currency-based auction house, please visit: http://us.battle.net...-12_1_2011#blog

To help us keep everything together we'd appreciate you post any and all auction house bug reports in this thread. If you have any feedback on the currency-based auction house, please visit the Beta Feedback forums.

Thank you, and happy testing! (Source - Blue Tracker)

Multiple dyes on one item
Unfortunately, placing say, red with black and gold on a single item is  not possible. You will only be able to use one single dye on an item at a  time. (Source - Blue Tracker)

CE item questions

• The skull is used as something for housing your USB key. It's not  necessarily practical, but I happen to think it looks wicked ;)
  
• The dyes  that you receive as a part of the Collectors Edition have unlimited  usage, so feel free to use them as much as you want.
  
• The wings are  actually just an item that sits in your inventory which you can enable  or disable at will. They have no timer and do not need to be equipped :)  (Source - Blue Tracker)

Killed during Skeleton King
If you release your body during a boss fight and it is still in-progress  when you return, you cannot enter until after the fight.

What  you can do next time is wait for your partner to resurrect you by  clicking on your cross without you releasing your body, or stay dead until the fight is over (Source - Blue Tracker)

1:45 PM
We also begin collecting questions for the Diablo III design meeting tomorrow. While we're constantly emailing and chatting with the developers, we also have dedicated weekly meeting time set aside to go through community-submitted questions and to get a sense of how the players are feeling. Answers are great, but getting the devs’ candid take on design and the game allows us to actually converse with the community, and not just copy and paste answers.

Most people enjoy the holiday tradition of sharing a meal with family and friends -- and delicious desserts are a big part of the reason why. This year, we're hungry to see you spread holiday joy from your kitchen by cooking up sweet culinary creations -- and finishing them off with a Blizzard touch.

Simply prepare and decorate a Warcraft, StarCraft, or Diablo-themed dessert. Take a picture of your creative confection and submit it, and you might just find something special under your tree from Greatfather Winter!

Hey everyone!

We've noticed there's been a bit of confusion surrounding the Diablo III Beta Key Sweepstakes, specifically in terms of how each winner will be notified and eventually granted access into the beta. To help clear things up, we wanted to quickly clarify how that whole process works.

While players who are selected through the official opt-in will have their Battle.net accounts automatically flagged for beta access, the same will not occur for the winners of the Facebook sweepstakes. Instead, sweepstakes winners will receive their Diablo III beta key via email from BlizzardContest@blizzard.com, and they will then need to activate that key through Battle.net by completing the following steps:

1) Log into Battle.net Account Management (https://us.battle.ne...unt/management/)
2) Select "Add or Upgrade a Game" from the "Games & Codes" drop-down
3) Under "Activate a Game Key," enter the key code into the provided box and click "Activate Game"

If the beta key is valid, the Diablo III beta will be added to the selected Battle.net account and can be downloaded here: https://us.battle.ne...ement/download/

For more information about the Diablo III Beta Sweepstakes, be sure to check out the official entry page and FAQ:
Official page - http://www.facebook....=app_6009294086
FAQ - http://us.battle.net...opic/3342018236

Good luck!

Can the wings be left on indefinitely, or are they an on activation thing with a longish cooldown like the toys from wow archaeology? Are the dyes in limited supply, or unlimited? Is it a pattern we get at one of the crafters?

The CE dyes are infinite in their use. Keep them forever, dye as much stuff as you want "Cloud" or "Smoke" colored. The colors are unique to the CE.

The wings are an item you hold in your inventory (don't take up an equipment slot on your character), and it's a toggle. Use to turn on, use again to turn off. They're awesome looking, and stack with other class effects like Shadow Power and Archon.

Are the wings like a one time thing? As in one per account on the first character you make? Or does every character on that account get the wings when they are created?

It's 1 per *character* you create. You can't drop or trade them, and can't sell them on the AH, of course.

Thank you all for posting your logs. These logs have been very helpful to the Battle.net team.

Now that we have a lot of logs that show testers' accounts broken, I was wondering if anyone could post logs that were generated when the game WORKED and the became corrupt from this bug.

As a reminder, D3Debug.txt re-writes itself every time you start a new game, so here are the steps to get the perfect logs we are looking for:

1. Log into the Beta with an account that works.
2. Play the Beta and use the Auction House.
3. If you encounter the Error_24000 or other issues, IMMEDIATELY copy the D3Debug.txt file to your desktop and post it to pastebin.com. Don't forget to remove your e-mail address :)

Thanks for your help with this guys. Having logs of broken accounts and accounts that became broken would be very helpful.