Firebats Skill Runed, Beta Key Contests, Leveling Curve, Interview with Leonard, and Book of Cain Drawings

Diablo 3 Manual Leak
NOTE: This is not confirmed nor does it have a valid source, PLEASE keep this in mind.
User grimgrave gave us a heads up on a leak of the Diablo 3 Manual being printed. Please keep in mind this is NOT CONFIRMED, nor does it have a confirmed source. Please keep this in mind while looking.





UPDATE - Bashiok On Release and System Updates.
Bashiok has just posted on the forums about when we might learn about some new system updates, along with the release goal still being Q1.


Official Blizzard Quote:



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.




Witch Doctor's Firebats Skill Runed
We have the next video in our series showcasing the various rune effects of different skills. This time, we have the http://diablowiki.com/Witch Doctor's" class="wiki-link">http://media-diablofans.cursecdn.com/attachments/16/736/wiki2.gif" alt="DiabloWiki.com - Witch Doctor's"/> Witch Doctor's DiabloWiki.com - Firebats Firebats skill with all five rune variations.




Beta Keys Contests, Round 2
Round 2 is here and many more are now enjoying the sweet click click action that is Diablo III beta. If you would like a chance to get into the beta, it's not too late. All you have to do is head over to Twitter, follow BlizzardCS, send a tweet with the #DiabloBeta hashtag and send an e-mail of the tweet to cstwitterfeedback@blizzard.com


Official Blizzard Quote:



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)




Leveling Curve
Bashiok was further asked about the difficulty of Diablo III, particularly the leveling curve. It has been stated that the plan is to have character close to, if not, level 60 by the time Hell difficulty is completed. However, Bashiok further explained the reasoning and difficulties with this.


Official Blizzard Quote:



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.



Diablo III interview with Leonard Boyarsky
Gamespot has posted an interview with DiabloWiki.com - Leonard Boyarsky Leonard Boyarsky, lead world designer for Diablo III. In the interview, he explains how they had created the story for the game at the very beginning and have stayed true to this plan. Plus much more about the story behind the game.


Official Blizzard Quote:



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)



Diablo III: Book of Cain – the drawings by Petar Meseldzija
One of the artists involved with the Book of Cain published his original concept sketches commissioned for the book. Also we got to see how one of the concepts looks in the book along with an extra readable page.

A few months ago I wrote about my participation within the book project named Diablo III: Book of Cain. Because the book was not released at that moment, I was not allowed to show the three drawings I was commissioned to do. I promised to post the drawings as soon as the book is released. (Source)

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