DiabloFans

Hey guys,

Would you mind not posting the entire interview in your article? I rely on traffic to keep my website afloat. Could you please just copy a segment of the interview (1-2 questions) and direct the rest of the article to Hellforge?

Thanks

I honestly don't quite understand why the first assumption you immediately jump to has got to be 'royalty fees'. Never has Blizzard ever mentioned that they had any intention of implementing features that required royalty fees in the game, so where is all this coming from?

Blizzard has unveiled a new design for Battle.net complete with new features and functionality. The development of a "new Battle.net" has been hinted at for a long time in anticipation for the upcoming releases of both Starcraft II and Diablo III.

The new Battle.net is an upgrade to all preexisting Blizzard Accounts tied to Starcraft, Diablo 2, and Warcraft 3. Owners of World of Warcraft have an option to merge all of their accounts to the new service.



Be sure to check out the new Battle.net Account FAQ too, as it may answer many of your questions regarding the new system.

Quote from "Lydeck" »

Well, first of all ... the bashing by the OP of Flagship Studios was unwarrented. There was a lot of unfortunate circumstances that went against them - aka, the Hellgate fiasco. In their defense, Mythos was a brilliant game and I'm happy to have gotten to test it as long as I did. Now on to Equinox's post.

Well, I have a lot of history with them. I was the founder and director of Hellgate Guru, which was easily the largest Hellgate London fansite. I think I was being quite mild in my treatment of Flagship in my post.

And, this being a Diablo fan site DOES allow him to make such biased claims. That's why people are here. To say extreme love for Diablo and hate on other things, if they so choose. If that's their opinion, who are you to tell them that they're not allowed to express their views, however bias?

That's right. Having an opinion is a beautiful thing when it comes to writing an article and expressing ones views. It'd be a bland Wikipedia article otherwise.

Quote from "Felthuzad_The_Unclean" »

This article is pretty thin, but it does get one thing right - the central role of David Brevik in creating the title.

However, there is one significant error: "several ill-fated titles before closing their doors"

Assuming this is a reference to Flagship, they released exactly ONE title before the doors were closed less than 9 months after shipping Hellgate. Mythos was never released. Of course, FSS never included more than a fifth of the Blizzard North people credited on "Diablo II" - something the article also fails to mention.

The fact that absolutely none of the people at Condor at the time still work at Blizzard is also worth mentioning, though the article neglects that one. Nor does it mention that the most important people at Irvine at the time helping to make the title happen - Adham, Wyatt, O'Brien - have long since left.

But at least it doesn't make four errors in the first three lines, like another overview of the Diablo series recently linked here.

Much of that detail is superfluous and deliberately omitted from the article.

I had an entire laundry list of facts in bullet point that I could have added to the history of the series but I'd be able to compile a very small book had I chosen to write it all in. For instance, I could have even mentioned Throne of Darkness, or how three of the developers including the man who designed the "Diablo" character founded a studio called Hyboreal Entertainment but nothing has come of it so far. Rick Seis and several others went with Castaway Entertainment, and that company floundered as well.

This information or "developer drama" is not pertinent to the development of the Diablo series origins, hence the reason why it was not in there.

Apart from the Run function, I found Hellfire to be a pretty bad expansion. The story didn't make much sense and the monsters were a bit too alien for my tastes. They omitted the events and the existence of the monk from D2, too. It's like it never happened.

There's no doubt in our minds that Diablo III is the game we're all waiting for. We often soothe our demon-killing needs with poorer substitutes like Sacred and Dungeon Siege, but we know that in our collective heart of hearts that Blizzard's masterpiece is the only series we'll return to in the end.

Two writers at the gaming blog Hellforge are coming up with a new series of articles revolving around The Great Wait for Diablo III and Final Fantasy XIII with exactly that in mind.

The Final Fantasy articles are penned by a talented writer with numerous passions in her heart, whose first love as a young impressionable girl was none other than Final Fantasy VI, while the Diablo III articles are written by yours truly.

Within the articles, we seek to document our obsessive struggle in anticipation for our two favorite upcoming games, discussing the latest rumors (in true literary snark), our assessments of their validity plus practical ways of coping with the mounting build up.

It is by no means whatsoever a replacement to the pertinent and up-to-date news that you'll find right here at Diablofans.com. But if you've any interest whatsoever in finding out why I believe Diablo III will be a game worth waiting for, feel free to check out the feature.

Quote from "gyrextt" »

Shes got nice curves, I hope she strips at some point in the game =)

Stay classy.

She's good looking, no doubt, but there's really no need for that sort of talk.

Blizzard's Sons of the Storm have released some new Diablo III artwork, this time featuring the female Witch Doctor. Some of you may have seen this piece of art before in gaming magazines, but this is the first time that we've seen it online with a fully detailed background.



What a lovely holiday treat from Blizzard! Thanks Sp3tSnAz @ Hellforge.

It's limited and it's only going to be on sale via their website. The regular version which gets released on Amazon/HMV and other retailers (offline and online) is only coming out on the 22nd. You can wait for that version if you want to, but I'd recommend getting the Legendary Edition if you want a bunch of small posters that you can frame and hang up on the wall. They're pretty good quality art.

My order's supposedly 'complete' so I'm just waiting for it to arrive within 7-10 days.

Quote from "MindLess" »

That's remotely nice to know..

Man, everytime Bashiok farts we're gonna have a huge headline on the front page?
I feel starved.

It's news. News and interesting articles go on the front page.

Official Blizzard poster Bashiok has mentioned the possibility of monsters using the environment against players, in addition to the other way around.

In PvP, can a player utilize the interactive environment to cause harm to another player? Can certain Mobs be able to use the interactive environment against you?

Bashiok: Right now if you knock down a wall on top of, or drop a chandelier on the head of someone in your party, it does damage/"daze" them. There's some potential issues with it, right now it's sort of just there because of the way those object interact with player characters as a whole. It's possible that due to exploitative or griefing potential they just can't continue to work that way. We'll see.

Enemies will destroy some/most destructible objects if they're in their way. Whether that may include actual damage dealing destructibles or not is probably more of a design decision on a case by case basis. We sort of want to reserve that for the player too I think, being able to damage enemies with the destructbles, but specific creatures that use the environment to their advantage are always cool.

I'd take the post with a grain of salt, because it sounds more along the lines of something that would be cool to put in, but not necessarily a priority for the developers.

Honestly speaking, how much do you think such an addition to gameplay would add to the overall experience? I'm fairly content with the fact that players will be able to interact with the environment without having monsters have a go at it, too. Put it this way: it might even be annoying to be constantly stunned by enemies who drop rocks on players, and that could get pretty old.

Quote from "okok9" »

too overpriced and overrated... only 90min, and only 1diablo song..
one good thing is - at least all songs are new..

There are 4 diablo songs.

It'll go to retail on the 22nd of November, but I believe that's only the Standard edition. I'm sure some comic book stores and places that sell D&D/Warhammer/Warcraft stuff will carry the Legendary version but they'll doubtlessly hike up the price.

Just order it directly from the site. Shipping's cheap.

The art probably isn't new, but it's printed onto high quality thick art material: perfect for framing up on the wall, and there's nine of them. I'll take these over a cheap poster or a printout any day of the week.

The 'taking on Diablo' thing seems to be an interview with Ko Otani about his Diablo composition and his take on the series and its music. Anyone who's enjoyed both Shadow of the Colossus and Diablo will probably want to check that out.

Anyway, you can just get the cheaper version with just the music in it.