Live Diablocast is Now Over!
The Recap
The conference concluded with Mike Morhaime's words that they're aiming for beta sometime in the third quarter. With the third quarter concluding with September, that means that, likely at the latest, we can expect beta to begin within a little over a month and a half. Unfortunately, no firm date for beta or release was announced. The team is still planning on a game release before the end of this year.
Conference Call Timeline
2:09 PST: Beta further confirmed for third quarter, and Mike restated team desire to release before end of the year.
2:07 PST: Mike Morhaime began talking about the Auction House feature, specifying safety and security as a reason for implementation.
1:38 PST: Beta confirmed for third quarter. More may be coming later.
1:33 PST: The conference call has finally started. Stay tuned to the Diablocast for all the latest!
The Buildup
Today is Activision/Blizzard's August Conference Call. We here at DiabloFans will be having live coverage of the event. We will be reporting any and all Diablo news released during this call to you guys. Force, Sixen. and myself (scyberdragon) will be holding a live podcast of the coverage starting at 1:00pm PST dicussing the latest Diablo news as well as listening in on the financial conference call for any new news. You can check the live cast from DiabloFans on Facebook, Force Strategy on Facebook, or the DiabloFans IRC Channel.
If the live feed is too awesome for you, I will also be posting any updates right here in this thread. The OP will be continuously updated with any news we get concerning Diablo. While it is unknown exactly what news we will be getting, it is more than likely we will have an update on when they expect the beta to begin.
If you missed the Live Stream, you can watch the recording below. We took a question or two, talked about our recent press trip, as well as our opinions on the major changes, switched to the Conference Call when they began talking about Blizzard's goals for Q3, and then had a small discussion before bringing it to a close.
[dfans]
Special thanks to magistrate for keeping everyone updated to the minute
Special thanks to magistrate for keeping everyone updated to the minute
MM sounded very non-committal on that, and did say that the RMAH required totally new systems that haven't been tested at all. If anything, it smelled more like late 1q or early 2q 12 to me, as opposed to the mid 1q I've been expecting.
He also mentioned a big WoW content push as specifically being at the end of the year, which also decreases the chances of 2011. The stock dropped 20c while he was talking, btw.
Mike confirmed that players would receive a certain number of weekly free trades on the RMAH.
After hour trading is currently up 4% to roughly $12.30
D2 beta was focused testing, per act, with level caps for internal testers. The entire game was not unveiled all at once, but in pieces. There were frequent down times due to hotfixing, resets (particularly when revealing new acts and classes) or game breaking issues with corruption in the player database. Again, it was very focused testing.
We've seen a tremendous amount of polish. Closed testing should begin SOON and not end of the quarter. This isn't internal knowledge, or even rocket science. It comes from playing these games and understanding the playing field as a developer and a customer.
Why we don't have a date yet? It's honestly a moving target. Until all teams are ready to collect the data they need, it will get pushed a day, two days, three days, until the right tools and limits are in place. They simply don't have a date yet. Frustrating as that might be, it's the reality.
Don't expect the entire game. That's not going to happen. You can't focus on and fix bugs when you are dealing with the entire game and a small pool of users expected to run through the content over and over without adding weeks/months to launching the final product. It's also a nightmare to prioritize and punt bugs.
If you've WoW'ed and ever begun on a new server, you need around a thousand players per faction to get enough item generation and AH activity to see how the micro-economy functions. That means some testers will make it to level cap and through the first act once, other players like me will do it as many times as allowed, multiple times per class. Beta doesn't mean everyone is hard core, some just got lucky, and some with beta keys won't even play.
Forget the terms internal or external. Focus on CLOSED and OPEN. Right now, this is a closed beta test. Invite only and will start out focused. OPEN is where they accept applicants and just modulate the flow of how many get to download and play with the game. You can't run a real economy unless you keep introducing new variables (items, players, time). The closed testers will be your higher level veterans, the open testers will be your nubs thrown into the mix.
I would say between 4-5000 invites will go out including those to BlizzCon attendees, opt ins from BNet accounts, press/VIP invites, and friends/family of employees invited in. That should net around 2,500-3,350 active users you can count on and at least 2,000 at prime time hours on at the same time to test and break everything thrown at the testers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0cxdGHG-_E
Nope, almost that high when MM began, dropped twenty cents, kept on dropping back to 11.85, now settled around $12.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=atvi&ql=1
AH trading never means much, but it is fun to watch how it reacts to CC blather.
Or were you expecting that they had made a promotional video just as Blizcon? Imagine a lot of investors in a tux watching the Blizcon video "And now with you... PVP Arenas!!!! Yaaaay!"
The website wholesale for many kinds of fashion shoes, like the nike,jordan,prada,****, also including the jeans,shirts,bags,hat and the decorations. All the products are free shipping, and the the price is competitive, and also can accept the paypal payment.,after the payment, can ship within short time.
free shippingcompetitive priceany size availableaccept the paypal
===== http://www.fullmalls.com =====
jordan shoes $32nike shox $32Christan Audigier bikini $23
Ed Hardy Bikini $23Smful short_t-shirt_woman $15ed hardy short_tank_woman $16Sandal $32christian loubo utin $80
Sunglass $15
COACH_Necklace $27handbag $33AF tank woman
$17puma slipper woman $30
===== http://www.fullmalls.com =====
===== http://www.fullmalls.com =====
===== http://www.fullmalls.com =====
===== http://www.fullmalls.com =====
===== http://www.fullmalls.com =====
The website wholesale for many kinds of fashion shoes, like the nike,jordan,prada,****, also including the jeans,shirts,bags,hat and the decorations. All the products are free shipping, and the the price is competitive, and also can accept the paypal payment.,after the payment, can ship within short time.
free shippingcompetitive priceany size availableaccept the paypal
===== http://www.fullmalls.com =====
jordan shoes $32nike shox $32Christan Audigier bikini $23
Ed Hardy Bikini $23Smful short_t-shirt_woman $15ed hardy short_tank_woman $16Sandal $32christian loubo utin $80
Sunglass $15
COACH_Necklace $27handbag $33AF tank woman
$17puma slipper woman $30
===== http://www.fullmalls.com =====
===== http://www.fullmalls.com =====
===== http://www.fullmalls.com =====
===== http://www.fullmalls.com =====
===== http://www.fullmalls.com =====
You cannot ensure that you get a beta key as Blizzard takes into consideration varying computer specs (not just top of the line specs), location, and also some randomness.