DiabloFans

This is a warning to all that spoilers may occur both in these forums, and the internet at large. We’ve worked hard to craft an engaging story and fun game, and our hope is that you have a pristine experience. For that reason we recommend you exercise extreme caution when perusing the webs of cyber space.

If you’re to be the lucky owner of a Collector’s Edition, we highly recommend you wait until after you have completed the game on Normal before opening the art book or watching the behind-the-scenes DVD/Blu-ray. Both of these items contain big spoilers, and should probably be avoided until later.

You should be especially cautious on May 14, as with the installer unlocking and worldwide releases taking place, the entire game will be available to be discovered and datamined. We also plan to populate the Diablo3.com game guide with item data that Monday, which may themselves be spoilers. If you care about spoilers, it may just be best to not go on the internet on May 14.

We will not be moderating topics discussing spoilers as long as:

• The thread title does not contain a spoiler
• The thread title contains [SPOILER] in it

If someone is found to be purposely posting spoilers with the intent to ruin the experience for others, such as using a misleading title or posting a spoiler in an off-topic thread, they will be dealt with harshly.

We appreciate your help in attempting to keep spoilers in-check, and hope you enjoy your first experiences in Diablo III. See you in-game!

We've recently become aware that playing Diablo III with the latest Catalyst 12.4 drivers for ATI cards may cause some visual artifacts for specific hardware configurations. This issue affects users of ATI Radeon HD 2400, 2600, 2900, 3400, 3600 and 4500 graphics cards under Windows Vista and Windows 7. ATI Radeon HD 4600, 4700, 4800, 5000, 6000 and 7000 series products are unaffected, as is Windows XP.

ATI is aware and investigating. Until a solution can be provided we recommend those affected use the Catalyst 12.3 drivers.

In our internal full game testing, I only did natural progression testing. I know others who only used what dropped for them as well (such as Zarhym and Daxxarri).

As I've said before, the game goes from being somewhat manageable to being very difficult over and over and over. There's no one point where that happens and then you get past it. A boss or area or Act that left you totally whipped and hurting in Nightmare is just waiting for you in Hell.

Sorry let me clarify, I meant when you guys played on the Inferno difficulty that I remember a dev saying that they just gave themselves gear, they didn't use a character they had progressed with from normal all the way to Inferno.
And to be really clear -- there is no doubt that Blizzard employees jumped to level 60 and jumped to awesome gear sets in order to test. That's a very common routine when you're testing for quality assurance.

I was just saying that not all Blizzard employees doing internal testing did that. I would guess that most did not.

Did you get anything really rare while leveling?
I did not. But I only put perhaps 50 hours into the game during our internal testing. I'm looking forward to having a bit better luck, and playing many, many, many more hours after May 15th.

Loot Epic Prizes at the Official Diablo III Launch Events!
We are pleased to announce that you will have the chance to win some amazing prizes at the official Diablo III launch events across Europe, thanks to our official partners.

On the night of May 14/15, BradyGames, Future Publishing, J!NX, NVIDIA, Panini, Razer, and SteelSeries are offering top-notch treasures to those of you brave enough to join your fellow heroes in the battle against the forces of Evil. So don’t miss out! This is the perfect opportunity to grab some outstanding loot in addition to being among the first to get a copy of Diablo III!

Head over to the dedicated website to find the location of your nearest launch event. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

What Makes Hardcore Fun?
I was thinking about this the other day. It's really cool to imagine putting together a team of players to try to be among the first to finish Inferno on Hardcore. Every time one of the team loses a character, it's a huge blow to progress, because if you're going to be among the first, you've got to wear the best gear you've found at all times, and not only is 1/4 of the team's best gear lost when someone goes down, but the whole team has to turn around and focus on leveling that player's new character up to a point that it's viable again.

Or go on as a threesome, right? While the fourth guy levels alone. That might be the better strat, since that threesome can continue to improve the team's gear set.

Or perhaps they decide that two of them will work on Inferno while one focuses on helping the comrade with the new character. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Pre-planning in higher difficulties
About five weeks ago, a co-worker of mine really hit a wall on the last boss in the game on Nightmare. And he's a fine gamer. Dude has plenty of talent. And he called me over and showed me his struggles, and I was stumped. I watched him playing very admirably, and going down, and I didn't know what to suggest. It was the first time that I really contemplated how complicated the build decisions can be for each hero. I was just merrily playing along on my heroes, making whatever build decisions seemed like the most effective, and not thinking ahead much. I started imagining scenarios that might come along and completely shut down whatever I was counting on (example: very close quarters when you're a Vault-centric demon hunter.) No big deal on normal. You die a couple of times, try a different build, and then work from there. But on Hardcore... you don't get to experiment. Once you engage that boss, it's win or lose. Big.

A third person came over and made some suggestions to the co-worker who was struggling, and made a positive difference. He defeated the boss, and was so happy that he forgot to pick up his loot before going on to Hell! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Sticking together in Co-op
One of the interesting things that happens, especially when your group gets up to four chars, is that it becomes more and more likely that you'll be dealing with extra monsters because it's so difficult to keep everyone tightly grouped together.

It's not usually that big a deal, but when your group aggro radius gets big *and* you wander into a situation where you manage to get two (or three -- I've actually pulled three) packs of champions on you (also because the group doesn't manage to kite perfectly back into completely cleared areas), well... you can imagine how it all ends up.

One of my minor predictions is that when you see a video of a Hardcore team clearing through the later difficulties, if they're any good, you'll see them sticking very close together. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Unlocking Hardcore
Level 10 is when we open access to create hardcore characters. We want players to have a general idea of how to play before giving hardcore a try. Experienced players will easily reach this level in a few hours, so we think this makes for a good balance.

And as Icey mentioned, there is no regional cross over, so if you start a character in a different region such as Europe, it will not be accessible in the Americas region. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

BattleTag and Friend Questions
Will there be a character specific or Diablo III specific friendslist as well, or is BattleTag the only way to add friends in Diablo III?
There will only be two levels of friendships in Diablo III when the game launches: Real ID friends and BattleTag friends. Character-level friendships like you have in World of Warcraft won't exist in Diablo III, so if you want to another player as a friend, you'll need to add them as a BattleTag friend or a Real ID friend.

Will it be possible to see only "Barbaros, Level 6 Barbarian, in a Public Game?"
Not really? While you'll be able to see your own character name (and while there will be situations when other players can see your character's name, too), your BattleTag nickname will be your primary form of identification. It's what players will see both in Public Games and most prominently in the friends list.

Hope that answers your questions!

im sure its just a small bit of confusing text there but you really mean
"We'll be adding in the ability to send BattleTag friend requests in StarCraft II and World of Warcraft in the future." right?
Nope! The original sentence is correct. Currently, you can only create BattleTag friendships while logged into Diablo III. This includes both sending requests and accepting them.

In the future, we'll be opening up the ability for players to send and accept BattleTag requests in StarCraft II and World of Warcraft. When that functionality is added, we'll be sure to provide more information on how the whole process will work, including what things will look like from the UI side and how BattleTag will integrate into Real ID and other existing chat systems.

So you HAVE to have a Battle Tag in order to play Diablo 3, but my question is, do I HAVE to use my "free change" that they gave everyone?
Nope! The name change is completely optional. It's there for you if you need it.

Or can I just keep the one I have now?
Yup!

Will I be able to play Diablo3 with my current Battle Tag?
Absolutely!(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

The Order - Audio and hard Cover Presale

Diablo III: The Order by Nate Kenyon will be out in just a few short weeks. If you haven't preordered it yet, there's still time!





I'm still debating on whether I should attend. I go to UCI, but I am ordering my CE from amazon. If it gets to me in time, would I still be able to have that copy signed? Or is it a, you wait in the line to the game which is also the line to get your copy signed?
I'd love to go...:p
You must purchase a copy there to get it signed, and can only get one thing signed per trip through the signing area to keep things moving.

Do you happen to know where exactly we'll be lining up?
From what I'm told Gamestop will be allowing people to line up starting at 9pm Sunday at the store.

The worldwide release of Diablo III on May 15 is less than two weeks away! Be ready to face down the legions of the Burning Hells as soon as the game launches by creating your BattleTag™ nickname today.

As we've mentioned previously, you’ll be required to choose a BattleTag before you can play Diablo III. Your BattleTag will serve as your public identity in-game, on the Diablo III forums, and in other places around Battle.net. To create your BattleTag or use your one free BattleTag change, simply log in to Battle.net Account Management, head to the Account &--#62; Summary page, and look for the Create or Change option under Account Details. BattleTags aren't unique, so you can pick any name you like as long as it adheres to the BattleTag Naming Policy.

The BattleTag FAQ and Battle.net website have also been updated to include more information about how BattleTags will work at the launch of Diablo III, what StarCraft II and World of Warcraft players can expect to see, and our long-term plans for the BattleTag system. Check out these resources for all the gritty details, and then head over to Battle.net to set up your BattleTag now.