Bashiok:  First, touching on the corpse fade timers as they stand, the tech to have them last longer has been in for a while. Pretty much how it's working is that there's an allowed number of physics "actors" that are allowed to remain at a time. These actors could be corpses, but they can also be pieces of destroyed tables, or railings, etc. anything that relies on physics. These are corpses and destructables generally. As you 'create' physics actors the oldest ones disappear. So as you're fighting there are always a number of actors remaining in the world, and it works out pretty well. Obviously how many of them can remain at one time will come down to final performance tweaking, but right now I believe it's around twenty.

On to blood and fading; the "cost" of decals, which include the blood stains, are fairly high. Cost being the relative strain put on the machine running the game. Decals account for blood, but they also account for quite a few other effects, most of which haven't yet been revealed. In the potential case of a full party creating these decals, blood flowing from creatures, skills that create them, as well as monsters themselves using skills that create them (Wretched vomiting all over the place is a good example), there is the potential to have a large number of decals on screen at any one time. So again, it's going to come down to final performance tweaks as to how many of them will remain on screen and for how long.

Jay Wilson: Well we have a brand new version of the Battle.net that is in the works. It’s going to come out with Starcraft 2. I cannot really steal their thunder in terms of the specific feature set, because that is their announcement to make. What I can talk about is the philosophy. It is essentially as a company our goal is to provide the best online experience that players will have in gaming.

We're pleased with the development progress on both StarCraft II and Diablo III and are looking forward to sharing more news about both games at next month's BlizzCon event. Development is proceeding at full speed on both games, but we do not currently have any release dates to announce for either game.

Bashiok: The glow on the shields of  Skeletal Shieldmen actually serves a couple purposes. First it's an easy and quick way to identify them from other skeletons, that's a given, but the second function is that it's actually a status indicator. Obviously as you hit them they'll block the hits with their shield, but they can only block so much damage. As they block damage the glow dims. It's a useful tool that visually indicates how close their shields are to breaking.

Bashiok: There have been a few discussions about chests, what they meant in the previous game, and what they'll mean in Diablo III. Currently there are no locked chests, and it's not something we're looking to reintroduce for now. We have discussed varying chest quality and types, adding randomness not only to the appearance of a chest but also the value of items it may drop or possibly specifically what types of items it's guaranteed to drop. Mix it up a bit and make finding a chest exciting, but make finding a special chest something even rarer and more exciting. It could certainly make exploring the entire floor of a dungeon more compelling before moving on.

On how the Sean Connery-esque voice of “Diablo’s” Deckard Cain came about:

Gough: Deckard Cain has a little bit of that Sean Connery thing that he does. I don’t remember exactly how it came about but I believe that the creators, the guys from Blizzard, threw the Sean Connery name out there. He was supposed to sound older and wiser but have a little bit of a kick to him, a little bit ornery but in that kind of sarcastic Sean Connery way. He doesn’t take a lot of BS, if you will. He’s a very fun character. And sometimes he’s kind of dark and doom and gloom, with all the “evil that spreads over this land will never be abated” but then other times when he gets cranky, it’s funny. “No one ever listens!” And I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the Deckard Cain rap, but I just started letting it go, and I have to boast I did make up a good portion of the lyrics. (laughs)

On how much Deckard Cain is in “Diablo III”:

Gough: Well, I did more than (what was shown at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Paris). I hope there’s more, but I did a pretty fair amount. It was just one or two four-hour sessions but there was a lot. It was definitely more than what you’ve seen in the preview. I’m not sure when it’s release date is targeted for, but yeah it seems like there’s going to be a fair amount of Deckard Cain, which is always a good thing. (laughs)

From the surprisingly large amount of unwanted creatures, I’ve managed to wheedle things down to a Top Ten list. Competition was tight; after all, it’s hard to pick the bad ones from the plain irrelevant… no one’s going to be interested in a three paragraph explanation about why the mosquito’s of Kruast were crap. Most of you will probably struggle to remember anything about Act 3 (it’s a big square place with a tower, right?).

So grab your shotguns and prepare to give Diablo’s Top Ten equivalents of Macaulay Culkin a proper farewell. I’m sure they can find work elsewhere… maybe in something for Runic Games?
And remember, if you don’t agree with me, you probably are Macaulay Culkin. Dude, wtf was “Party Monster”? You deserve to be unemployed.