I don't think it's a coincidence that the number of blue posts have declined significantly as of late. Blizzard is going to announce beta during their conference on the 9th. The beta will begin by the end of this month. Yes, I am that much of an optimist. ALSO, the release date will be at the end of June because:
- 95% of all game content/items/monsters/etc are actually complete and they are just keeping quiet about it
- they have already been playing through the entire game, working out a lot of major bugs and are within a couple of months of producing a polished ready-to-ship version of D3
- the beta will go so smoothly, fixing the remaining smaller bugs, a major glitch here and there, and correcting balance issues without any major setbacks
Too optimistic for most but I'm absolutely confident!
*disclaimer: this entire post is absolutely pure speculation on my part*
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I make sure people go to jail. The only thing more fun is Diablo 3.
I think you're right. But more importantly I reaaallllyyy hope you're right.
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"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
It is more than likely that they are gearing up for a "larger than normal" info release. Don't you think its more probable that they will show us the male Daemon Hunter instead?
Very optimistic I would say. I think male DH will be announced 1st. Although he did say the game was walkable from start till end, he also did say that a lot of things were not fully done/scripted, like you kill a boss with 1 hit and it dies, a text appears, Congrats bla bla bla. So I think there's still a fair amount of work to be done. 4thQ of 2011 sounds realistic
Remember: Although the beta will be most likely announced on the 9th, it doesn't mean that it will start right after that. They probably will wait a month or so to work out some b.net kinks before they hand out the beta.
We can't be sure that they will announce it on 9th Feb. They might just consider the date to be sometime later. Unless we have an inside ninja who can reveal what they are up. Anyone around?
I've been trying for years to find a way to ninja my way into Blizzard, but the attempts have been unsuccessful to say the least.
The reason that February 9th is such a solid date is that announcing a beta is a big deal. Especially for Blizzard. They have no events planned that would be suitable to announce the Diablo III beta, except for the 9th. Last year, they did the same for StarCraft II, so I think they will do the same this year.
Jay Wilson said that release of Diablo III would be about 6 months after beta start. That means, if the beta started today, it would be out in August. And since it is widely believed that Diablo III will be out in 2011, they need to start the beta before June.
Remember: Although the beta will be most likely announced on the 9th, it doesn't mean that it will start right after that. They probably will wait a month or so to work out some b.net kinks before they hand out the beta.
I wouldn't say most likely. Remember the Blizzcast where people were expecting the next class anouncement? I do. Ended up being some UI screenshots and not much else. I'm more leaning towards what Don said, that they'll address whether or not we'll see D3 at all this year.
The reason that February 9th is such a solid date is that announcing a beta is a big deal. Especially for Blizzard. They have no events planned that would be suitable to announce the Diablo III beta, except for the 9th. Last year, they did the same for StarCraft II, so I think they will do the same this year.
Well I would agree that it is one of their only opportunities, but for Cataclysm they announced the release date through a small press release of only text. Now, WoW already has enough momentum so they didn't really need to make a big deal out of it, and it was still highly promoted on TV and at Blizzcon, but it does make it seem like they don't get limited by the event windows they have, and if they needed to, they could do a similar, low-key beta announcement for D3, and then just promote it a bunch at their next event.
Can you sign up for the beta even tho it's not announced yet ? I remember seeing something like "beta registration" long time ago on battle.net. I could be mistaking...
Can you sign up for the beta even tho it's not announced yet ? I remember seeing something like "beta registration" long time ago on battle.net. I could be mistaking...
You can change your Battle.net profile settings to opt-in for the beta. Remember, just because you want to be opted in, doesn't necessarily mean you will.
However, last year for the StarCraft II beta, they accepted "waves" of players to join the beta, and then eventually gave you a free beta key with the pre-order of the game at Gamestop. So I would imagine the same would apply for the Diablo III beta.
Only one quarter finishes the year and starts another.
Sure, though there would be no reason not to mention an upcoming beta at any of the other quarterly CCs. Besides, 11/11/11 has a nice ring to it, whether you want to guess it is a release date or a beta-start-announcement date. I'll bet on the latter, or a few days before that. B loves to step on Bethesda's toes, and Elder Scrolls is coming out that day.
One thing that Jay Wilson said that makes me scratch my head is, release will be about 6 months after the beta begins. What does the Diablo III development team need 6 months for? Supreme balancing? I don't think so. They have billions of possible builds, so it won't be possible. They obviously need to do some extreme testing with something.
I suppose they do have 4 acts, 3 difficulties and tens of thousands of items...
That's a good point. Many believe that the beta will only be a small selection of the game, most likely the first part of Act 1. Why would they have a 6 month beta to test such a small portion of the game. Of course there will also be PvP, but as they have said, this is not the focus of the game so it will not be the focus of the beta.
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Why would they have a 6 month beta to test such a small portion of the game.
Because the (semi) public beta is mostly about making sure that the performance fundamentals are solid. They also need that time for an internal test of the tons and tons of content that isn't in the opening act, not in terms of bugs, necessarily, but in terms of making sure that the content itself is worth the big B on the box. Six months is actually pretty aggressive when you think about all of the mechanics in the game.
- 95% of all game content/items/monsters/etc are actually complete and they are just keeping quiet about it
- they have already been playing through the entire game, working out a lot of major bugs and are within a couple of months of producing a polished ready-to-ship version of D3
- the beta will go so smoothly, fixing the remaining smaller bugs, a major glitch here and there, and correcting balance issues without any major setbacks
Too optimistic for most but I'm absolutely confident!
*disclaimer: this entire post is absolutely pure speculation on my part*
First roll: Barbarian!
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
For the specificity of your predictions however, you get a +1 from me.
We'll know real soon how true they are.
"One does not simply rock into Mordor."
"There's no I in Team America!"
bashiok is probably in fiji drinking white rum though...
Thanks Caniroth for the awesome sig!
That is an appropriate quote considering we have all been hoping for D3's release for eons and our hope has never waned. Thanks for the +1, btw.
First roll: Barbarian!
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I've been trying for years to find a way to ninja my way into Blizzard, but the attempts have been unsuccessful to say the least.
The reason that February 9th is such a solid date is that announcing a beta is a big deal. Especially for Blizzard. They have no events planned that would be suitable to announce the Diablo III beta, except for the 9th. Last year, they did the same for StarCraft II, so I think they will do the same this year.
Jay Wilson said that release of Diablo III would be about 6 months after beta start. That means, if the beta started today, it would be out in August. And since it is widely believed that Diablo III will be out in 2011, they need to start the beta before June.
Well I would agree that it is one of their only opportunities, but for Cataclysm they announced the release date through a small press release of only text. Now, WoW already has enough momentum so they didn't really need to make a big deal out of it, and it was still highly promoted on TV and at Blizzcon, but it does make it seem like they don't get limited by the event windows they have, and if they needed to, they could do a similar, low-key beta announcement for D3, and then just promote it a bunch at their next event.
Find any Diablo news? Contact me or anyone else on the news team.
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You can change your Battle.net profile settings to opt-in for the beta. Remember, just because you want to be opted in, doesn't necessarily mean you will.
However, last year for the StarCraft II beta, they accepted "waves" of players to join the beta, and then eventually gave you a free beta key with the pre-order of the game at Gamestop. So I would imagine the same would apply for the Diablo III beta.
Sure, though there would be no reason not to mention an upcoming beta at any of the other quarterly CCs. Besides, 11/11/11 has a nice ring to it, whether you want to guess it is a release date or a beta-start-announcement date. I'll bet on the latter, or a few days before that. B loves to step on Bethesda's toes, and Elder Scrolls is coming out that day.
I suppose they do have 4 acts, 3 difficulties and tens of thousands of items...
Find any Diablo news? Contact me or anyone else on the News team