2012, The Year Of Diablo III
It saddens us at Diablofans to have to announce this, but bad news is best served fresh. The target release window for Diablo III has officially been pushed into 2012.
Official Blizzard Quote:
We commonly use the term “soon” when referring to Blizzard releases, because we know that no matter how hard we’re working to reach a target, we’re not going to compromise and launch a game before it’s ready. For Diablo III, we were aiming to launch by the end of 2011. As we’re announcing globally today, our new target for the game is early 2012.
While this news might not be a complete surprise, I know that many of you were hopeful that Diablo III would ship this year. We were too. However, this week we pulled together people from all of the teams involved with the game to decide whether we felt it would be ready before the end of December, and we grudgingly came to the conclusion that it would not. Ultimately, we feel that to deliver an awesome Diablo sequel that lives up to our expectations and yours as well, we should take a little more time and add further polish to a few different elements of the game.
The upside of today’s announcement is that we will be running the beta test longer than we initially planned, which will allow us to invite more of you who have opted in.
For those taking on the Diableard challenge, we salute you -- and now fear for your well-being and personal hygiene. We hereby issue an official reprieve to all Diableard participants, including Blizzard employees, if you want to trim or otherwise manage the lower half of your face. We’d still love to see your beardly achievements, and we look forward to seeing more of your efforts as we move into 2012, but not to the detriment of your workplaces and significant others.
Thank you everyone for your support and anticipation for Diablo III. We’re still moving ahead at full pace, and we’ll be keeping you fully informed of any news and developments here at Diablo3.com, including the specific release date when the time comes, so stay tuned.
-Mike Morhaime
UPDATE 2: A fellow Diablo follower from another site was able to capture the linked post in its entirety. With this as further evidence, it seems the Blue post itself was in fact legitimate. As it looks, the post was promptly taken down shortly after its publishing.
A special thanks to Soul for bringing the image to my attention.
UPDATE 3: The post is back up on the Official Site.
Diablo is not targeted for hardcore fans only. They even said its a casual game and it still has its hardcore sense to it for hardcore players.
F*** Call of duty can be for hardcore players but the reason the sales of cod are crazy because even the average gamer will buy it.
The game doesn't need to polished this is all because of battle.net I can't think about any other reason to delay it to FEB.1.2012 (like it is posted on G4)
That is a 2 month push only. I'm pretty sure if diablo was released in december in 8 weeks time there would've been a patch.
Everybody on this form is going to buy the game i have no doubt because we all have the D2 memories. I'm 24 right now and I'm going like a 12 year old that is getting an xbox on christmas day.
Anyway hope we all get in the beta....and if somebody says i don't care about the beta no more they are just bullsh*t and they are just mad.
Don't get me wrong im really mad when i read it i actually closed my browser and was like its the weekend i don't need bad news lol.
I think what may still happen is that the longer the game takes to come out, the greater our expectations will be, and then the more unlikely our expectations will be met.
Another thing that can happen and I think is happening for me is that the hype inside you just kind of burns out after awhile. I can't maintain the same level of excitement for too long. And then to have it confirmed just now that the game is definitely not coming out next year, it starts to make me care less and less about the game. And yes, I will still buy the game when it comes out so don't anybody start telling me to stop bitching cause I'm gonna buy the game anyway, yes, I know I am.
The worse thing Blizzard has been doing all this time are the Bashiok posts and all the updates on progress and changes. Don't you normally get the impression when a developer suddenly starts releasing lots of information that the game is getting really close to being released? Most developers it seems tend to keep quiet about a game for the most part until it's just about close to being done. But Blizzard constantly engaged with fans on their forums over their concerns and complaints and this was so annoying to me. And they'd do some press release about a feature of the game, only for that feature to either be changed dramatically or scrapped entirely. I just don't understand this kind of approach to marketing. It makes the developers look insecure when they're telling you about each step of progress they're making. Like they're trying to reassure you that yes, they really are working on the game. As opposed to just going into lockdown and working on the game. I'm not saying that I think all their weird PR work is interfering with progress of the game. I just think they've appeared kind of unprofessional with their level of interaction with fans this far away from the game's release.
And all these incremental updates, for what? They're changing so much of it along the way anyway. From skillsets, to how they work, to balance issues, to using AH, to armor progressions, to inventory management. I just thought that with all the stuff they've been showing lately, why show it unless you're actually close to releasing the game? What has been the point all this time of filling fans in on every detail of the game's progress? It's sent me anyway the wrong impression about the game's overall progress. I've just been thinking all this time, well, the beta's out, they're showing so much of it to the public now, it simply MUST be really close now, definitely be playing this game by Christmas.
I don't know...I just kind of feel like a jackass following the game all these past months and reading all these little updates on the game's features and progress. I just feel jerked around to be honest. Maybe it's time the developers just kind of shut up for awhile and just surprise us all when it's ready. Really, I'll be fine not knowing that you're going to revise the Demon Hunter's resource system. Seriously! I'll be okay not knowing this. And you don't REALLY have to tell us about Vanishing Dye. I'll figure it out when the game is released so just stop already. Like...just shut up and make your game already so I can buy it.
I have to say to the above sentence... agree 110%
B
3 years ago, it was CONFIRMED,really a big day for all of us.
Today, see all you guys here, talking about the game, I am happy and contented, really.
It will come out and it's not far.
Anyway, we have plenty of good o'l games to keep us entertained (battlefield 3, batman, skyrim... need I say more?
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3229085559?page=17#335
It's a long post so I'll only quote the part I found interesting. Perhaps I'm just in the mood for a good conspiracy hunt, but I am curious as to what would be the source of this delay. I'm also unsure if I think this guy knows what he's talking about or is just making crap up to look better on the forums. Either way, it's an idea I haven't heard many people discuss.
Thoughts?
He's talking way over his head. He may work in the software industry, but he has no clue what goes on within Blizzard. Given how much Blizzard has talked about Diablo 3 over the past three years, I'd expect the delay announcement from no one but Morhaime. Frankly, it's refreshing to see a CEO to put himself out there like that as the spokesman for the company. You won't find that happen in many other companies. However that forum post is doing nothing but putting his tin-foil hat on. His reasoning is no more valid than WoW being the cause of the delay.
It's pretty clear that software bugs aren't the reason. I do agree with him that the beta is an older build and the majority of bugs have already been found in-house, which is why Blizzard said the beta was primarily a stress-test. 1+1=2 on that one. Most likely the delay has to do with getting the RMAH up and running and getting it legal in more countries other than the US. Given there's a small amount of people testing right now, it's pretty clear there's some large infrastructure issues as well.
Lets not forget that the earliest realistic estimate for release was around Christmas, so delaying to early 2012 really isn't a big deal. It doesn't really need any explanation beyond something like, I don't know, the new runestone system. This is Blizzard we're talking about, they delay games all the time. The idea that some 'higher power' or WoW influenced a Blizzard delay is more than a bit ridiculous. Did we all forget about SoonTM or something? They're notorious for this. IMO its pretty clearly a result of their development process, nothing more.