I know this thread is probably quite off topic at this point, but did anyone notice recently the Blizzard jobs page? Now they're listing their hot jobs by providing a little icon reference to the team to which they will be hired. So far it looks like WoW, SC2 and Top Secret at the three.
I apologize for any malcontent in the following message, but;
Can we finally close the verdict on this thread?
I feel as though I have contributed as much relevant forum fodder to the thread as I possibly can, but at this point I realize we are spinning our wheels with no real focus in mind.
Let's put our efforts back into Diablo 3 and what this community really stands for. Why not revive the efforts to tease out some D3 facts? I'll even go back to speculating over rumors (carefully and cautiously).
We are the authority on Diablo 3 news, I guarantee you. I've read a number of forums where the topic of D3 has perked its evil, horned head and the mods have pointed the discussion to the learned pages of Diablo3.com.
In closing, I would hope that the moderators would start a new thread that we can dedicate to the healthy banter regarding the subject of Diablo 3 and less of the other flotsom that has recently plagued this noble community.
Sincerely,
The Octagon
(Diablo fanantic since 1996)
I was just paging through some recent news on the CG in Liepzig and was thinking that Blizzard may be trying to unleash a new title on each major game-playing content. If this holds true, we have a Diablo 3 scenario on our hands for Europe. Observe.
SC2 - Korea (Asia)
WotlK - America (North America)
that leaves the third of Blizzard's major consumer population and one that would be thrilled to have a game unveiled on their soil
Diablo 3 - Germany (Europe)
What do you think? I'm just rekindling my optimism here. Also, I haven't seen much coverage of the event as of yet, I know IGN has a dedicated page for it. Post some links if you find coverage people!
Hey good work dunhac! It didn't occur to me that we should try researching announcement locations for the original Diablo games.
That said, were there any major pseudo-public game conventions in the late 90s or was it all more or less an industry word-of-mouth procedure? I remember printed magazines having a large influence on the exposure of new games to the public. Maybe ... just maybe ... I have some original issues of Computer Games Strategy Plus tucked away somewhere, but those may have long since been recycled. I will, however, comb through the archives for the edification of the Diablo3.com crowd
EDIT: Oh, shit, I just found my copy of King's Quest VI. Nostalgia setting in...
Let's make this happen. Imagine how much attention Blizz would pay to us if we, in fact, had made a major scientific breakthrough. I bet they would give each of us our own hidden NPCs in game or something.
Which is a funny point - if you go through and look at the credits of the Diablo titles there are quite a few items and monsters that share their names with the developers (e.g. Schaefer's Hammer [Max and Erich Schaefer], Lord de Seis [Rick Seis], Shenk the Overseer [Phil Shenk], Colenzo the Annihilator [Karin Colenzo])
I prefer "realism" to negativity. If you perceive the reality of our having to wait until we have a finished, polished, all-star product on our hands then, yes, it seems a bit unfortunate.
I'll reiterate that coming on this board among a community of Diablo 3 hopefuls and saying the ever popular "sorry but Diablo 3 is not coming out didn't mean to ruin your day or anything" certainly doesn't phase me. As a long-time veteran of the Diablo franchise I firmly believe that Blizzard will revisit it at some point (within 18 months, ideally, to see some real footage and maybe a hands-on preview at a major game convention) and may very well have their production teams blazing full steam ahead on Diablo 3. I hope this is the truth. There are certain signs that point to this as being reality.
I love to speculate and I love to conjecture on the "hints" and such. That's what makes this a good discussion, but I am afraid we'll continue to see more unsubstantiated and poorly constructed all-out rejections of Diablo's future. I suppose a few here and there are good to spur a nice argument, but for real debate let's stick to the tangible stuff. We have statements from Paul Sams, Richard Knaak and other Blizzard executives that do not specifically allude to Diablo but do not altogether negate its possibility. If they express clear interest in a series and recognize its community as active and starved for a title it is in their best interest to start production on a game or tell us quite plainly that we should not expect a Diablo sequel.
I believe this makes sense. And since we've heard Blizzard say that Diablo is still a living franchise, there is no reason to believe that we are to be deprived of Diablo for more than is absolutely necessary.
Paul Sams exclusively denied the existence of a console game in development at the current time. He all-out dodged a few questions which you can interpret as him having all the information and not being able to disclose it, or having almost none of the information, but when he comes out and says definitively "We don't have console plans" then you can rest assured that Blizzard is not hiding some ultra secret console dev team.
You can't lie to the public - but you can sure as hell be cagey about your responses to questions that you are unable to answer honestly without sacrificing some prestige and element of surprise for future releases.
As for his reaction to the Diablo question - like we've all known, Blizzard knows damn well that Diablo is a very popular franchise and also a great money maker for them.
I think it caught him off guard, because in my opinion, maybe this whole Diablo-less Blizzcon could have been to throw us off the scent a little bit. I wanted D3 announced at Blizzcon as much as many of you devout fans out there, but at this point we all have to reinterpret what has just happened to us. Based on what Sams said, Diablo is still a living franchise (and he obviously hadn't much to say past that) and that we can expect to see it revisited. I don't think Blizzard is giving us a giant middle finger, because it's clear to them based on the community and the continuing number of players of the Diablo 2/D2x that we're not just meant to be passified, we need to be satisfied, and they have a lot on their plate right now and as such will not be coerced into producing crap (which we clearly don't want) so all the Diablo fans will shut their mouths.
I for one wouldn't stand for a new subpar Diablo product. I can't blame Blizzard for their hangups with Warcraft, but at the moment it's their most popular product. Remember when Diablo was on the top of the heap?
Same story.
Also, another thing I can't tolerate are people saying "Oh I saw a job posting for a mobile developer on the Blizzard site, Diablo 3 is going mobile, sorry guys you lose." That is absolute nonsense. How does anyone know that Blizzard doesn't want to create a new Lost Vikings game for the handheld market (cell-phone, as handheld might fall under console)? How do we know they're not just planning a stand-alone app that allows you to check Blizzard news and ladder status (beacuse they're pushing the PvP eSport angle more in North America now, and our addiction to cheesy cell-phone apps is flagrant)?
Let's all take a deep breath and rethink this. Nobody get up in arms over Blizzard's decisions. I'm sure they'll follow through with thier promises, and if you want to follow the ever-so-popular "decade" theory, we're not due up for a sequel until 2011. That certainly sucks, but it would give them enough time to have SC2 out and fully supported while WoW dwindles a bit and those fans jump ship for a new taste of adventure.
It's so disheartening, but we still stand strong as a community and we don't have to stop analyzing artwork and release dates and coincidences, it's actually kind of fun. Just use some logic and it turns out to make the waiting less painful.
I know this thread is probably quite off topic at this point, but did anyone notice recently the Blizzard jobs page? Now they're listing their hot jobs by providing a little icon reference to the team to which they will be hired. So far it looks like WoW, SC2 and Top Secret at the three.
Top Secret?
Nice. I like their style on this one.
Can we finally close the verdict on this thread?
I feel as though I have contributed as much relevant forum fodder to the thread as I possibly can, but at this point I realize we are spinning our wheels with no real focus in mind.
Let's put our efforts back into Diablo 3 and what this community really stands for. Why not revive the efforts to tease out some D3 facts? I'll even go back to speculating over rumors (carefully and cautiously).
We are the authority on Diablo 3 news, I guarantee you. I've read a number of forums where the topic of D3 has perked its evil, horned head and the mods have pointed the discussion to the learned pages of Diablo3.com.
In closing, I would hope that the moderators would start a new thread that we can dedicate to the healthy banter regarding the subject of Diablo 3 and less of the other flotsom that has recently plagued this noble community.
Sincerely,
The Octagon
(Diablo fanantic since 1996)
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=28106
http://kotaku.com/gaming/steaming-mad/gc-asia-announced-just-to-piss-us-off-294070.php
Blizzard is expected to be in attendance. No further announcements are confirmed
Check it out though, if you go to GIGA's homepage they have a nice GC banner with a link to the GIGA2 video page.
www.giga.de
I'm just happy we're all somewhat on the same page
Keep hope alive!
SC2 - Korea (Asia)
WotlK - America (North America)
that leaves the third of Blizzard's major consumer population and one that would be thrilled to have a game unveiled on their soil
Diablo 3 - Germany (Europe)
What do you think? I'm just rekindling my optimism here. Also, I haven't seen much coverage of the event as of yet, I know IGN has a dedicated page for it. Post some links if you find coverage people!
I certainly hope so. It's been tough slogging through 150-200 page threads lately haha.
Either way - let the Diablo community band together and hope for the best!!!
That said, were there any major pseudo-public game conventions in the late 90s or was it all more or less an industry word-of-mouth procedure? I remember printed magazines having a large influence on the exposure of new games to the public. Maybe ... just maybe ... I have some original issues of Computer Games Strategy Plus tucked away somewhere, but those may have long since been recycled. I will, however, comb through the archives for the edification of the Diablo3.com crowd
EDIT: Oh, shit, I just found my copy of King's Quest VI. Nostalgia setting in...
Let's make this happen. Imagine how much attention Blizz would pay to us if we, in fact, had made a major scientific breakthrough. I bet they would give each of us our own hidden NPCs in game or something.
Which is a funny point - if you go through and look at the credits of the Diablo titles there are quite a few items and monsters that share their names with the developers (e.g. Schaefer's Hammer [Max and Erich Schaefer], Lord de Seis [Rick Seis], Shenk the Overseer [Phil Shenk], Colenzo the Annihilator [Karin Colenzo])
I prefer "realism" to negativity. If you perceive the reality of our having to wait until we have a finished, polished, all-star product on our hands then, yes, it seems a bit unfortunate.
I'll reiterate that coming on this board among a community of Diablo 3 hopefuls and saying the ever popular "sorry but Diablo 3 is not coming out didn't mean to ruin your day or anything" certainly doesn't phase me. As a long-time veteran of the Diablo franchise I firmly believe that Blizzard will revisit it at some point (within 18 months, ideally, to see some real footage and maybe a hands-on preview at a major game convention) and may very well have their production teams blazing full steam ahead on Diablo 3. I hope this is the truth. There are certain signs that point to this as being reality.
I love to speculate and I love to conjecture on the "hints" and such. That's what makes this a good discussion, but I am afraid we'll continue to see more unsubstantiated and poorly constructed all-out rejections of Diablo's future. I suppose a few here and there are good to spur a nice argument, but for real debate let's stick to the tangible stuff. We have statements from Paul Sams, Richard Knaak and other Blizzard executives that do not specifically allude to Diablo but do not altogether negate its possibility. If they express clear interest in a series and recognize its community as active and starved for a title it is in their best interest to start production on a game or tell us quite plainly that we should not expect a Diablo sequel.
I believe this makes sense. And since we've heard Blizzard say that Diablo is still a living franchise, there is no reason to believe that we are to be deprived of Diablo for more than is absolutely necessary.
www.diablochaos.com
Yeah, that's right. I found that the other day and posted it but these threads have gotten ridiculously long so it's worth a repost.
It's also worth noting that I tried about 20 different combinations of words with diablo only to find that that one was operational.
You can't lie to the public - but you can sure as hell be cagey about your responses to questions that you are unable to answer honestly without sacrificing some prestige and element of surprise for future releases.
As for his reaction to the Diablo question - like we've all known, Blizzard knows damn well that Diablo is a very popular franchise and also a great money maker for them.
I think it caught him off guard, because in my opinion, maybe this whole Diablo-less Blizzcon could have been to throw us off the scent a little bit. I wanted D3 announced at Blizzcon as much as many of you devout fans out there, but at this point we all have to reinterpret what has just happened to us. Based on what Sams said, Diablo is still a living franchise (and he obviously hadn't much to say past that) and that we can expect to see it revisited. I don't think Blizzard is giving us a giant middle finger, because it's clear to them based on the community and the continuing number of players of the Diablo 2/D2x that we're not just meant to be passified, we need to be satisfied, and they have a lot on their plate right now and as such will not be coerced into producing crap (which we clearly don't want) so all the Diablo fans will shut their mouths.
I for one wouldn't stand for a new subpar Diablo product. I can't blame Blizzard for their hangups with Warcraft, but at the moment it's their most popular product. Remember when Diablo was on the top of the heap?
Same story.
Also, another thing I can't tolerate are people saying "Oh I saw a job posting for a mobile developer on the Blizzard site, Diablo 3 is going mobile, sorry guys you lose." That is absolute nonsense. How does anyone know that Blizzard doesn't want to create a new Lost Vikings game for the handheld market (cell-phone, as handheld might fall under console)? How do we know they're not just planning a stand-alone app that allows you to check Blizzard news and ladder status (beacuse they're pushing the PvP eSport angle more in North America now, and our addiction to cheesy cell-phone apps is flagrant)?
Let's all take a deep breath and rethink this. Nobody get up in arms over Blizzard's decisions. I'm sure they'll follow through with thier promises, and if you want to follow the ever-so-popular "decade" theory, we're not due up for a sequel until 2011. That certainly sucks, but it would give them enough time to have SC2 out and fully supported while WoW dwindles a bit and those fans jump ship for a new taste of adventure.
It's so disheartening, but we still stand strong as a community and we don't have to stop analyzing artwork and release dates and coincidences, it's actually kind of fun. Just use some logic and it turns out to make the waiting less painful.
Ok, I'm goin to go do some MF runs
ok yeah that is still funny despite it being a WoW thing