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Diablo Archive TPB soon ... Is Diablo 3 looming?

From: .blizzplanet

http://www.blizzplanet.com/?action=news&id=897

Diablo Archive TPB soon ... Is Diablo 3 looming?

It is not yet listed in United States, but Blizzard Entertainment and Pocketbooks will launch a Trade Paperback of 825 pages titled Diablo Archives. So far it is translated to German and French. It compiles Richard A. Knaak's Diablo: Legacy of Blood and Mel Odom's Diablo: The Black Road. If you want to get into Diablo lore either because you like it or if you are new into Diablo game and wish to know more before Diablo III comes out, then this Trade paperback tome will be a good choice.

The rare Diablo: Demonsbane written by Robert B. Marks - the first Diablo book released and only available on PDF nowadays - will be available soon on a Trade paperback titled Blizzard Legends which compiles a book per game: Diablo: Demonsbane, Starcraft Uprising and Warcraft: Of Blood and Honor. With the arrival of these Diablo pocketbook trade paperbacks one wonders if they are heralding the upcoming announcement of Diablo III.

For upcoming Warcraft Trade Paperbacks read our previous Announcement. Check out our Diablo Pocketbook Excerpts section to know more about all available books in the franchise.

Diablo Archive TPB soon ... Is Diablo 3 looming?



It is not yet listed in United States, but Blizzard Entertainment and Pocketbooks will launch a Trade Paperback of 825 pages titled Diablo Archives. So far it is translated to German and French. It compiles Richard A. Knaak's Diablo: Legacy of Blood and Mel Odom's Diablo: The Black Road. If you want to get into Diablo lore either because you like it or if you are new into Diablo game and wish to know more before Diablo III comes out, then this Trade paperback tome will be a good choice.

The rare Diablo: Demonsbane written by Robert B. Marks - the first Diablo book released and only available on PDF nowadays - will be available soon on a Trade paperback titled Blizzard Legends which compiles a book per game: Diablo: Demonsbane, Starcraft Uprising and Warcraft: Of Blood and Honor. With the arrival of these Diablo pocketbook trade paperbacks one wonders if they are heralding the upcoming announcement of Diablo III.

For upcoming Warcraft Trade Paperbacks read our previous Announcement. Check out our Diablo Pocketbook Excerpts section to know more about all available books in the franchise.

Ironically, Blizzard's free service would succeed where every other online gaming service had failed. As of 1999, Battle.net was "the only profitable online gaming service in existence," according to Greg Costikyan in an article for Salon.com. "How? Advertising. 30+ million ad impressions in one month alone."

"Most people don't realize it," says Mark Kern, "but Blizzard has been running servers in datacenters since Diablo. Diablo 2 was also Blizzard's first true client/server game. We learned a lot of lessons that I was eager to apply to WoW."

Blizzard, having essentially turned the wave of the future into a tsunami, then set about using their momentum to wipe all competition from the face of the map. With a proven online service and no fewer than two successful fantasy franchises under their belts, the company decided that it was time to revisit the idea of subscription-based games.

"We had to build an entire company around [World of Warcraft]," says Kern. "This included tweaking everything from PR and QA to establishing entirely new departments like operations, customer service, GMs and billing - it literally transformed Blizzard."

As well as the entire landscape of online gaming. It was the final move in a decade-long coup d'etat by Blizzard, against the entire gaming industry.

To date, WoW boasts more than 6 million total subscribers, bringing in an estimated $75 million dollars per month.





I just wanna D3 be free as I am so poor........................

Blizzard says "EVERYTHING IS AN MMOG"

Vivendi Universal Games gave a presentation to Wall Street today. Too much to report on everything said, but the big one was:

"All Blizzard franchises will become MMOGs."

All. They claim they have a model now to develop an MMOG in 3 years for $50 million. WoW cost 50 million euros and took 4 1/2 years.

They have bifurcated the MMOG market into two parts: long session games (more than two hours per session) and short session games (less than two hour sessions.) They will also be rolling out a bunch of short session games under the Sierra Online brand. An example is FreeStyle, a pick-up basketball online game scheduled for 2007 release. No details on pricing model for the short session games.

Shiznitz sent this in this morning and all I can say is good for them. Apparently splitting what will probably end up as 8-10 million customers (maybe more, Asian gamers are unpredictable about things like STARCRAFT) across 3 games isn't a concern to them. They're lucky stock brokers know nothing about video games





Following last night's news that Blizzard were going to be concentrating on moving their franchises over to the MMO format, they issued a brief response on the WoW forums.
I believe this was a misquote. We haven't announced any specific development plans beyond the upcoming expansion for World of Warcraft, and we don't have any intentions to focus on only one genre or platform with our future games.
The response is vague and they are of course not going to admit it or put out any press release on the matter so either way we are still in the dark a bit on this one. I would just be happy with any new Diablo title.





It is not an official announce since it's more like in the form of "hype" to feed that type of audience with speculations. But I still consider this a reliable plan they have and that they WILL pursue now. Here Blizzard doesn't exist anymore. My guess is that Vivendi is taking over. It's not Blizzard deciding what to do next or even organizing the workflow. This is Vivendi seeing an insane stream of money coming in and going all "OMG, MONEY HATS FOR ALL!". Then they rush in Blizzard's offices with a grin, "SEE WHAT WE DID? NOW WE ARE MMOGs."

Vivendi is not only taking over at the level of decision making. They are really stepping in Blizzard's offices and taking over at every level. Before Blizzard was just an anomaly. This studio is so strong, as I pointed out in the past, because they ARRIVED to the success after a LONG process and hard work. It's something handcrafted, done by people passionate about their work and slowly improving. "Vivendi taking over" is instead part of that other process who made so many important devs FLEE from Blizzard. Because they saw what was going on and that Blizzard was losing its role and slowly becoming just a "puppet". The premises that made all that possible were changing. Those who saw that, left. With WoW's HUGE success this process was accelerated considerably and I consider this presentation as the ultimate consequence: Blizzard's autonomy is being killed.

Before WoW Vivendi didn't have a particular attention for Blizzard, like every other division they have under them. Blizzard was successful, but only one cog in a huge machine. After WoW everything completely changed. While Blizzard probably had still a certain amount of autonomy, after the huge success of the game they weren't anymore "invisible" to the Vivendi guys at the high levels. And this accelerated the process. You see, when you work for someone and do a good work, it's all ok, you receive some praises and everything continues along the same lines. But when you start to do something absolutely *amazing* then you can be sure that they won't leave you alone. They'll come into your office, start asking questions, and yes, starting telling you what to do next so that TOGETHER you'll conquer the world. Because they made you. And you are their property and merit.

People don't leave you alone doing your work if they see that everything you touch becomes gold. Blizzard is the new "King Mida". They make money hats. And now they totally have the attention of Vivendi. And they won't leave them alone anymore, they won't let them do their work. Instead they WILL take over, they WILL pretend to control and pilot them.

So this is what I see: it will need a few years before this process is complete. But Vivendi is going to take over, and this sort of "invasion" will have the consequence of ruining completely and slowly erasing all the "worth" that Blizzard slowly built along the years and with their hard work. They are guilty of having drawn too much attention on them, and now they are being swept away. It happens when you overdo, when you shine too much to continue doing what you do without things changing around you.

Diablo and Starcraft MMOs weren't announced by Blizzard. They were announced by Vivendi. Blizzard is no more.

Those games will be made. Whether Blizzard wants or not. They aren't no long masters in their own house. And in the next few years we'll see a bleeding fracture between Blizzard and Vivendi management, trying to preserve control.

Right now Blizzard has barely the resources to support WoW. They don't even have two separate teams to work on the live servers and the expansion.

Whatever will happen, things won't be anymore the same.

The above information is from other forums. I find it on www.d3cn.com

D3 will be published in 2008!

I am feeling Diablo 3 is coming...........