DiabloFans

Normally, we'd be getting a community spotlight article this weekend.
However, due to the sudden surge of use of the "fan creations" forums as I call them, we thought that an article dedicated to them was in order.

Fan Fiction

An underrated, under-read part of the forums. Here is where all of our writers post their works. Some have been added to over the course of months, such as The Veiling by Seth, while others are relatively new, such as the Dfans Movie by Nekrodrac. You might also want to check out Kickin_It's Redemption of the Vizjerei.

At the heart of this forum, is the Diablofans Writing Guild. Here, reviews and critiques are given to the various works submitted. In addition, a story of the month is chosen, and put in the OP. If you wish to begin writing, or want some help with writing, this would be the place to seek it.

Also, for those of you who have no interest writing Diablo related stories, there is the Non-Diablo Fan Fiction forum. This forum is, as the name reveals, the place for any writings that are not based in the Diablo universe. Many have been submitted here, and are as good as, if not better, than some of the Diablo related works.

As for the stories themselves, here is an excerpt from The Veiling:

"They say far east of the Marshland coasts is a forgotten continent, steeped in intrigue and mystery. Miscarcarand, it was called, when Sanctuary was yet young. They say it came from a world even older than ours. They say the Nephalem never knew of it. They say a lot of things, and then they disappear.

Far from the ravages of the Mage Wars, isolated from the morality of mankind, magick was practiced there: very old, very powerful magick, the kind forsaken by the Mage Clans long ago."

~Excerpt

Now, among the fan fiction forum, is a special type of fiction that revolves around the choices of the users. Scyberdragon has written a "choose your own adventure" story, in which you, the user, direct the actions of the main protagonist. A synopsis follows...

Choose your own adventure is just that, you get to choose your own adventure. The story has been running Sept. 05, 2009 and is still going strong. Every update to the story ends with a decision, that you the reader, get to make. This decision will completely change what happens next time the story is updated.

The story began with our main character William, a young boy, bravely opening the door and saving his Mother's life. His town was in ruins and a Barbarian (Kaelan) saved William and his mother. William soon returned the favor and saved the life of an Assassin named Sara. The four traveled to Kaelan's home of Mt.Arreat. Here, they left William's Mother and continued their journey to find the source of Evil. They have run in to some other people only to have them unfortunately killed. Upon reaching Caldeum, they met up with a Sorcerer who goes by the name of Gaheed. Joining the group, they made their way to the Kurast docks. Here, they got a mission from the famous Assassin Natalya, to retrieve a ring. While fighting a giant spider, the readers decided to have William put on the ring they found. The ring magically turned William into an adult instantly. Not knowing what happened, the group decided to travel to Ureh to find Natalya and get answers. Along the way, through the jungles, they have met up with a crazy Witch Doctor named Kifu. They continued their journey until they saw a mysterious glowing ball. After tracking it down the ball has begun emitting a strange fog out of it.

This is where the story has lead up to. If this sounds interesting and you would like to be a part of this heroic tale, stop in and vote for the next series of events.

And a summary and excerpt of Kickin_It's Redemption of the Vizjerei:

As a hypothetical backstory for Diablo 3's male Wizard, Redemption of the Vizjerei follows our hero-to-be as he begrudgingly embarks on a journey with a mysterious old man to confront his personal demons in the lands of his childhood and forestall the return of the Burning Hells to Sanctuary.

Excerpt:

He lowered his hand from his face and ran it tenderly across the scarred and pitted surface of the old table. “This could be your chance for redemption, son. For setting right the ill deeds you have committed.” So he did know. But how? I slowly lifted my head and peered once more into his glimmering eyes. My lips parted to speak, but again he raised his faintly trembling hand and I was struck dumb. “There is more to your fate than even you know. This journey – if you like to think of it as such – is not one of adventure. Rather, it is one of erudition and deliverance. Your personal salvation, as well as that of the entire mortal realm of Sanctuary, rests in your hands...”

Fan Art

http://diablofans.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=55&pictureid=1099&thumb=1

For those of you who can't use words as your artistic medium, there is the Fan Art forum. This is where all of our artists showcase their works. Atrumentis used to be the reigning champion of this forum with his web comic. However, he has been unseen lately, and thus, champion status is available to anyone who wants to take this forum by storm.

However, this doesn't mean we don't have strong submitters already. Holyknight3000 frequently posts up wallpapers (one of which I'm currently using), and Tepes has recently emerged as one of the best artists on this website. Kudos to everyone who takes the time to create, and post their artwork.

http://diablofans.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=55&pictureid=1101&thumb=1

Also, somewhat related, is the Off-Topic Forum. This is where any non-Diablo artwork goes. So, even if you can't draw knights and demons, then you can put any artwork you make in this section and it will still gain recognition.

Personally, my favorite piece of artwork is the Doom Knight, by naj. It's an amazing piece of (unfinished) art, and is oddly disturbing. There's something about it that I love, I just can't put my finger on it.


Roleplaying

http://diablofans.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=55&pictureid=1119&thumb=1

Yet another underrated forum section. This is where on-forum roleplaying games are hosted. From zombie survival, to demonic hordes, this forum has many roleplaying games that users can take part in. They are constantly evolving, being created, and dying off. All the games are the creations of users on this website, all it takes is a bit of creativity, and some spare time to get one off the ground and onto the screens of users. This section was much more active in previous years, with Elfen Lied and Jetrall running the show with several RP's suited for a multitude of players. However, this forum has recently surged upwards in activity.

At the moment, this section has two upcoming, and two running RP's. To participate in them, just ask the users who are running them if there is room. Most RP's on the forum revolve around the Diablo storyline, however in the past (and currently), we have had roleplays that take place during modern times, in outer space, even in the lore of games such as Zelda or Baldurs Gate.

Should you wish to create your own, then the Roleplaying Archive would be a fantastic place to look for inspiration. Here is where all the past RP's are stored. They're fairly good, yet extensive reads if you wish to fully immerse yourself in the story.


A Final Word...

Myself, and all of us here at Diablofans wish to thank everyone who takes the time to make, the time to display their creations, and the time to listen to the feedback of all who view their works. It brings us together as a community, and provides entertainment to many. Seriously, give yourselves a pat on the back, you deserve it.

Should you be reading this and feel left out of the "back pat club", then you know what to do, start planning some projects!

For those who don't remember, one of the main problems the fanbase had with the art direction of Diablo III was that characters were "over the top". To some, their armor was too big (pauldrons in particular), their muscles too exaggerated, and their sizes simply disproportional to their environments.



For those who saw this as a problem, hope may be on the horizon, as was recently indicated by Bashiok:


The image pictured on the top right was the one that made many fans first question the art direction and the armor proportions. Many thought that the massive pauldrons had no place in a "realistic" game like Diablo; however, when we take the above quotation into consideration, we can figure out that this is due to the camera angle and position.


The picture in question was taken to showcase the female barbarian, inflated, and rotated to give an action pose. If we compare this to the picture to the left, it's very apparent that the size of the pauldrons may be the cause of the angle, and distance of the camera.


Next, we have this fact. When you're seven feet tall, or very close to seven, since we are talking about the female Barbarian, you are going to need some massive shoulder pads. So of course they will seem massive when compared to other characters or the scenery; however, when we look at the Barbarian, herself, we can see that the pauldrons are actually a size relative to the size of the character in the second screenshot.


This quotation by Julian Love also helps to explain the shoulder pad fiasco. Using the two screenshots as comparison once more, the one pictured on the top right was taken very early in the development cycle, and it was one of the first batches to be released. The second one, with toned down pauldrons, was released further down the development road.

Obviously, with the above quotation as proof, the first set of pauldrons were oversized for a reason: to be sure they were big enough. With their "pull back period", they've been refined, made more proportional to the size of the Barbarian, and more believable.

Fear not all ye' of little faith in the art direction, hope may still be on the horizon.

Over halfway through January, and our little slice of heaven is still picking up steam.

New features have been added, activity has been up (especially with the new experience system), and forums previously dominated by tumbleweeds have been seeing some action.

All in all, it looks like the holiday halt has finally passed us by.

And now, onto the spotlight.

The Forums

First off, I'd like to point out dorgeismydog, who made two sister threads, Our Azmodan, and Our Belial. Basically, these two threads are dedicated to the two evils we've yet to eviscerate. In them, dorge asks what we think we'll be getting for them, and posts up various pictures of how people have interpreted them. Thus far, Azmodan has seen much more discussion that Belia, but I'm sure you can change that. Go discuss!

Next up, is a discussion on Torchlight builds, a game that has recently fallen out of interest. Umpa65 posted this thread up, hoping to get people to post up some of their most interesting builds. He started off with a build he calls the "Fire Overlord", but sadly, no other builds have been posted. So, if you play torchlight and want to share your build, get in there and post.

Finally, is a thread about damage types by Lt. Venom. Basically, he asks what your favorite damage type is. Seems a lot of people are shooting for cold, since it definitely had the most useful effect tied in with it (slowing enemies). Personally, I'm all about lightning. Anywho, if you want to talk about which damage type was your favorite, or which you used most, check that thread out.


Forum Changes

What a great month, seriously, what a great month for changes.

New version of Vbulliten early in the year, and now we've got two more changes.

First off, was the Experience System. This system is pretty nifty, it takes nearly everything you can do on the forums, from adding pictures to albums, to rating threads, and calculates them together to give you a level.

Next, was the Diablo Tools section. This allows you to map out builds you want to try out, or to maximize damage potential. I've already blown away several hours tinkering with it, and suggest you do the same. It's definitely my favorite feature on this forum. This tool was brought to us by Superceb.

Fan Creations

As I mentioned at the beginning of this, the fan art and fan fiction forums have seen a lot more action than usual lately, hopefully this trend continues.

Seth continues work on The Veiling, and also gave us an interesting piece by the name of Walter.

Nektu has written out a story called The Visitor, while Guasti is still churning out sections for his story, Jonathan.

For fan art, we've got a piece by Metal', a piece by Archie, and a piece by Tepes.

The Wiki

Right now, it seems that most effort is being put into the Eastern Sun section of the wiki. A new infobox is in the works, and any feedback on it would be greatly appreciated by the wiki team.

Also concerning the infobox, is the info that goes into said infobox. Namely, the skills. If you've got some spare time, and knowledge of ES, do the wiki a favor and chip away at the massive amount of skills that need to be completed.

Blues Not In The News

The first blue post I wanted to draw attention to was this one, in which Bashiok explained why guns would be out of place in the Diablo universe.


The second, is a quick update on how many people are working on Diablo III, the current number is somewhere near 70, and still growing.


Also, on a sidenote, I'm sticking with the dark red for the spotlights, it seems to cause less retinal hemorrhaging than that ungodly green.
If anyone has suggestions for a colour next month, throw em' down and I might choose yours.

But anywho, there's this month in a nutshell. Hope everyone had a good one.

Earlier we found out that armor sets were undergoing some changes, and the female wizard has gotten a new unarmored look. However, the specifics of the changes were kept from us. But, now, we've got some insight into what was changed, and why these changes took place.


A step in the right direction, in my opinion. The only picture we have of the in-game unarmored Wizard is pictured at the beginning of this post. However, with a bit of photoshop magic, we can tweak the colors to a more accurate representation of the current look.

We must keep in mind that a simple color-swap was not the only thing done to the new unarmored female wizard look. As Bashiok pointed out, the previous unarmored wizard had a lot going on. Not so much the armor itself, but the colors involved. There are just too many; it seems very cluttered. Think back on the default armor of all the classes in Diablo II, all consisted of mainly one color.

This also brings into question how much armor will alter the looks of characters. Bashiok mentioned that currently, armor upgrades feel more "powerful" than before, due to the toned down unarmored look. This makes perfect sense, since the improvements will be much more dramatic than if we had an "armored unarmored" look. Though, it's still yet to be seen how drastically armor sets will alter your character. So far, this is the only picture we have to compare to.

Even with the previous unarmored look, it seems a very drastic improvement. More pieces of cloth and leather are layered on, new colors are added, and more "trinkets" are present in the armor, as well. Now, with the retexture of the unarmored female wizard, these changes will be even more apparent.

Well, we're back from holidays and the new year, and back into the swing of things. Blizzard is posting news and snippets once more, and the forums are back into their regular activity.

Thus far, not much incredible news has been released into the new year, but there should be some coming along soon, or so I'd hope.

So, with my little introduction out of the way, we move to the community..

The Forums

Trying out a new colour for the spotlights, hope ya'll approve.

Anywho, first off, we've got Nektu, a shining example of what a new member should be (in my opinion, at least). He's posted up a thread for all you budding chefs out there, his cooking corner here at Diablofans. All kinds of great recipes are in there, so far we've had recipes for fish, demi glace (no idea what is it, but it sounds good), chicken fingers, spaghetti sauce, and all sorts of other recipes. If you want to impress somebody with an amazing recipe, or have a recipe to share, this is the place you should go.

Next, is Mephisto's Lament, and his fan-favorite contests. So far, he's gone through the NPC's of Diablo, to determine the fan favorite, and now he's well into the monsters. The monsters from Diablo I have already been passed by, but the thread for voting on Diablo II's monsters is still up, and still active. Keep an eye out for more voting threads, he needs all the votes he can get.

Lastly, is J/-\YK/-\Y, and the glorious return of his RTOA (Random Trivia Of Awsomeness). Basically, it's a trivia game, an awesome trivia game. Categories have ranged from Halo, to chemistry, to Mario, and over to Diablo. Mostly it's a video game trivia, but there have been other categories as well. Right now, carambolage de charogne is in the lead, by one point. Get in there and try to de-throne her.

(Also, if you didn't get the chance to read Don_guillotine's latest editorial on the in-game economies of the Diablo games, you can check it out here. It's a great read and well worth your attention!)


Forum Changes

Well, we've had several changes lately. The newest vBulletin update has been downloaded, and honestly, I'd be lying if I said that I knew what it gave us. With that update, came an update to the rules. With the rampant arguments on the reputation system, we've now got some rules to help moderate this.

Check out the updated rules if you haven't already.

Fan Creations

The fan art and fiction forums have activity once more!

For fan fiction, we've got Guasti who is continuing to write his story, Jonathan, a combination of Dungeons & Dragons, and Diablo fantasy. Seth also continues to write his story, The Veiling.

Tepes has also contributed, but with his fan art. He has created three, one of a barbarian looking for mephisto, one of the female wizard, and one of a flail weilding barbarian. Good job man, keep er' up!



The Wiki

Seems to be a good year for the wiki, Skynight is already creating pages for the mod Eastern Sun. The amount of players here on our forums seems to be growing quite steadily, so it will no doubt see more use in the coming months, as well as more demand. Thus far, skill pages for each class have been created, and though there is still a lot of work to be done, the wiki team is confident that it will be completed. If you've got a knowledge of Eastern Sun, help him out and contribute in any way you can.

Eskanasi has also emerged into the wiki, and has been doing minor edits to articles that were thought to be completed. It is his attention to detail that is cleaning up many articles, bravo, I say.

As for the current direction of the wiki, Phrozendragon has begun a Lore Summary, which all users are welcome to edit at their leisure, so long as you edit it with useful, correct things. If not, the wiki sysops will crack down on you. But anyways, if you wish to discuss this within the forums, check it out here.

So much activity on the wiki already, and we're hardly half way through the month. It's looking up to be a promising year, you'd better hop on the wiki bandwagon soon, if you haven't already.

Blues Not In The News

Rejoice once more necromancer fans, this post by Bashiok clearly states that he's not down for the count yet, we may end up seeing his return in an expansion.


Speaking of expansions, Bashiok posted a rather hilarious response to a user QQ'ing about expansion classes, read it if you're needing a laugh.


And there you have it, the first spotlight of the new year, let's make it a good one for the forums.

We're all used to the tried and true Mana system, but with the new Fury system planned for Diablo III, the franchise is drifting into new waters, complete with a whole new host of possible imbalances.

Ral posed an interesting question regarding Fury, and the PvP system on the Blizzard Forums.

The (unconfirmed?)Fury system of the barb sounds, in a way, similar to the Frenzy skill in D2. That skill is fun to use in PvM, but obviously isn't viable in PvP, since it takes time to charge up, time you dont have during a duell. That's fine with me, and so is any "charging" resource system Blizz thinks of in D3, because a fun class/skill is way more important then duelling.

If we all remember, Assassins that relied on charge up skills, and Druids that relied on Feral Rage, were very rare sights in PvP. The time it took them to charge up their skills, often left the opponent with a solid opportunity to kill them off. This is because skills that charged up had to wait several seconds longer to use, while skills that had no charge-up system, could be used at their full potential only by expending mana.

Which, raises the question, of how the Barbarian will be able hold his own in PvP?

Thankfully, Bashiok was there to shed some insight on the new system.


So there you have it, the barbarian will be able to use certain skills without using fury. However, with this new knowledge, it raises the question of how powerful these skills will be?

If we use the example of the Assassins charge up skills once more, they were generally quite powerful at the third charge, but only for one hit. The fury system seems to be functioning quite similarily, except instead of having to "charge" specific skills, we will be charging our fury, then we'll be able to execute skills that meet the fury requirement.

So, if we draw some similarities between the two, we can conclude that skills that require fury will be more powerful than those that do not.

It's still unanswered how the barbarians skills will stack up against those of the classes that need mana to use theirs, however.

I'd like to think that the skills requiring no fury would be slightly less powerful than the skills of the other classes that use mana, but the skills that do require fury, would be much more powerful than those of the other classes. The time needed to charge the skill would be easily offset by extra damage, hopefully encouraging their use in PvP, and PvM.

However, we don't know for sure how these skills will be balanced. Knowing Blizzard, they'll do it right.

With the news grinding to a halt, the holidays have been rather uneventful.
... If, you don't count THE NEW DIABLO II PATCH!

Your levels of excitement may vary, but I was pretty thrilled that the patch had finally been released. I've gone from despising it at first, to now being absolutely pumped that it's out, since now Blizzard is really starting to take community suggestions.

So, now that I've got that out of the way, onto the community.

The Forums

First off, is this gem of speculation, created by Don_guillotine. If you haven't read it, read it, as it could be the most solid speculation I have ever seen. This thread, also played a massive part in making Don part of the news team (Welcome to the team, BTW.), but that will be discussed later. In conclusion, he figures that the next class will be a rogue. But the road he took to get to that conclusion was, as the very least, massive.

There has been a lot of talk lately about Blizzard moving games to consoles, and CrazyCapnMorgan made a pretty solid poll about the opinions of the forum. In it, he's carefully outlined the questions, the conditions, and has left the door open for some interesting speculation about how, when, and if Blizzard would ever make a console game. As it stands, most people are sitting on the fence, however, this trend could be swayed by some of you voting (hint hint).

Since Avatar has been blowing peoples minds left right and center, it seems appropriate to spotlight the thread created on these forums about the movie, brought to you by hyde. The thread had gotten 10 pages of solid discussion on the movie thus far, if you're looking for a review, opinions, or nuances about the movie, this is the place to look for em'.

Forum Changes

Restructured yet again, this time the Blizz Tracker. Now, we've got one button that leads to the various trackers (another of which is soon to be added, giving us a total of 3).

Also, we've got a button that will send you to the Diablofans Twitter page. If you've got a twitter account, spread that page like the plague, we need more followers.

Also, we've got 3 new staff members!

Nyalite - "If there's anything else you want to know about me, please ask me. I don't bite."
Scyberdragon - "My main focus will be braving the black plague that is twitter to relay all of the important information back to you guys safely."
Don_guillotine - "Hi, I'm Don G, and while I don't sleep with the fishes, I'll be writing editorials for the news!"

Fan Creations

Zomg, we've got activity on the fan art and fan fiction forums.

Art
This picture by DefiledVisions is just another one of his incredible pieces of artwork, throw some rep at him if you've got the time.

Holyknight3000 has also thrown up one of his regular wallpapers, this time a holiday themed tavern.

Fiction
Seth and Daemaro have taken it upon themselves to revive the fan fiction forum. Both of their works (The Veiling by Seth, and False Prophecy by Daemaro) are works in progress, but both will hopefully be updated soon with more work, I'm looking forwards to having some reading material round' here.

The Wiki

The scramble has begun to update pages with the changes made by the 1.13 patch. More will be on the way, of course, since this patch will no doubt see more changes once feedback begins pouring in fron the public test realm. So if you see a change that has yet to be made, take it upon yourself to help them out.

They're also still finishing a lot of the quest pages, and NPC pages, and are in need of some help. This post has a table listing the completed, and yet to be completed pages for this section. So, once more, if you've got time to kill, and knowledge to spread, do it in the wiki.

Blues not in the news

Snappy new title, hope ya'll like it.

Anywho, before Scyberdragon became staff, he posted up a thread about the Dreadlands, and the Arreat Crater. It included various pictures, and posts that never got much attention. The conclusion he reached was that, at some point in Diablo III, it seems we're visiting the Arreat Crater.



Anyways, happy holidays from myself, the Diablofans staff, and even from the guys at Blizzard.
Hope you had a good one.

Rumours fly as Gamasutra interviews J. Allen Brack about Blizzard's thoughts on Consoles vs PC's, and it seems that a console game may not be too far off for the PC Juggernaut.


Now, Blizzard has tried in the past to make console games, such as Starcraft 64 (for the Nintendo 64), or Diablo I (for the Sony Playstation). Having played both, I can say with certainty that they were immensely fun for gaming nights, but both were dwarfed by the PC version, complete with a LAN party.

These days however, it seems that LAN parties are becoming a thing of the past. Sure, pockets of resistance still exist. But for the most part, those gaming nights are moving towards multiple consoles in the same house. If Blizzard wishes to take advantage of the changing demographics of the gamer culture, then they may have to release games on consoles once more.

Of their current franchises, Warcraft is the only that has not had a console treatment. Keep in mind that both Diablo and Starcraft 64 were relatively unsuccessful on the consoles. For WoW, which is similar to Diablo, this means bad news. For Warcraft (the RTS version), this also means bad news, since it is similar to Starcraft.

With this in mind, it means that Blizzard may not be using Warcraft as their next console game.

However, this leaves the door open for a new franchise to step up to the plate, and dominate the console world. It's already been confirmed that Blizzard has a new franchise in the works, in the form of an MMO, so it's clear that they are expanding their line.

Whether this means a new franchise will also be made for consoles though, is yet to be seen.

Once more, it seems that news is beginning to pick up.

First off, it seems appropriate to point out that the new patch has been released (complete with in-depth analysis), meeting mixed reception among users. Some love it, some hate it, and some fall somewhere in between.

NOW, without any further delays, I've got a community to spotlight.

The Forums

One subject that has slowed in discussion lately is the monsters, but, as it happens, pwnsickle is fixing that. He's identified the monster archetypes outlined by the guys at Blizzard, and offered his thoughts about what each one could entail. Only 2 pages of discussion so far, but I thought it was an incredible topic, deserving to be pointed out. Good work mate.

Not much interesting discussion going on in this next thread, but it's important nonetheless. Iceblade has created a thread for us Diablofans to get together on the public test realm for the new patch. So if you want to play with some of the users around here, get in there and post up your account.

Finally, is a possible exploit that Coldsthil posted out. It has been confirmed that bosses will have "finishing moves", or "fatalities", basically interesting ways to kill us, once we reach 0 health. But, Coldsthil brought into question if the bosses would be immune to damage while executing these moves. Essentially, we would be getting free time to heal, further damage the boss, or get into better positions as it used up time with its flashy moves. Quite impressive that users are finding exploits in a game that doesn't exist yet, good work.

Fan Creations

Well, it seems our fan art and fiction forums are still quite... dead. Once more, I'm calling on ya'll to post some stuff up. This section will only be included when we have fan art, or fiction, to show for.

BUT, we've got activity in the Roleplaying forum. Thanks to yours truly, and Party_Foul. After several minutes of discussion, we decided to try our hands at running a roleplay, and Abbadon's Legions was spawned. Thus far, players have woken up aboard a slaver ship, battled for freedom, killed a kraken, and made landfall on an island. If you wish to join, feel free to give either of us a shout.

The Wiki

The team is scrambling to modify articles according to the changes brought about by the new patch. Placeholders have been put in place while we wait for the articles to be spiffied up. See here if you wish to chip in.

Also, they're currently working on filling out NPC pages. Most are already done, but, like pages effected by 1.13, need to be given some modifications. They're currently working on adding several quotes, a list of items sold (if the NPC is a vendor), and possibly sound files. See here if you wish to contribute.

In addition to the above, quest pages need to be given a facelift. Phrozendragon pointed out that the majority are already finished, but just like the above two, modifications need to be made. See here if you wish to help out.

The Posts

You voted, and it turns out that a list of impressive posts is one of the things you wanted. So, now onto the posts...

For funniest, I thought that this post by Turmobil took the cake. Turmobil found a list of the best metaphors and analogies used by students in the USA, and posted it up. I nearly had to change my pants, was laughing THAT hard. Hopefully you won't suffer a similar fate.

For most speculative, this post by purelog1c stood out. Now, there have been many posts and threads about the fifth class being a ranged class, but none of them measure up to the amount of proof, speculation, and overall thought that went into this one.

I'm not entirely sure what other categories I should include for this section, so if you've got some suggestions, throw em' at me and I'll try to include them next time.

Blue Posts That Got Away

This was the other section you wanted, a section for blue posts that didn't make the news, but still stand out.

Thankfully, Scyberdragon took the work out of this section for me, by creating this thread. He found a twitter post mentioning the Diablo III calendar, being sold for just over $12. Anyone else considering buying one?

... And he struck again, pointing out yet another blue post, in this thread. As it turns out, Diablo II made #7 for the top 50 games of the decade, according to Destructoid. Good to see our beloved franchise outstripping the competition.


And thus concludes Chapter 3, once again, if you see any threads or posts you think deserve to make it into Chapter 4, drop me a PM.

More news on the locations we'll be visiting, somewhat indirectly though.

A user on twitter asked the boys on the Diablo Twitter page how many classes they planned for, and if the locations visited would cover all those detailed on the Sanctuary map.

Their response, was thus...


The part about the classes, we all knew.

And the part about the locations, may have you thinking "Oh joy, a vague response."

But bear with me.


The locations in Diablo III so far, have been a forested lowlands, and a desert. The locations in Diablo II, started with forested lowlands, and then moved on to a desert.

If we take that trend, then we can pretty safely assume that next up, we'll be seeing a jungled area, and then, we'll be travelling to hell. This speculation of Hell's sequence in the acts is strengthened by how it appeared in Diablo I, and Diablo II. Both were reserved for the last act.

If this isn't enough for you, remember those bubbling waters we had to trudge through in Act III? Well, some time ago, they tweeted about work being done on a tar pit effect. Discussion ensued, and some suggested that it would follow in the footsteps of the bubbling waters of Diablo II's vision of Kurast.

While we probably won't be visiting the EXACT same areas as in Diablo II, it does seem that the areas themselves, and the sequence that we've seen them in, is quite similar to how they appeared in Diablo II.

Anyways, time has yet to tell what the next act(s) will hold for us, but hopefully, this gives us a hint at what's next.



Or, if you don't agree with my interpretation of this, then check out Scyberdragon's, located here.

Finally, a lengthy post by Bashiok!
He's been rather silent as of late, but all is forgiven...

In case nobody has seen this response by Bashiok yet, it's essentially giving us more info on the rune system, which, thus far, has been kept pretty tightly under wraps. What we do know, is that they will be applied to skills, and that they will have a multitude of different effects.

What we don't know, is everything else.

One of his responses in particular, while very short, stood out from the others for sheer potential for discussion.


Now, this can be taken two different ways depending on how you interpret it.

First, he could be saying that rare versions of the same rune will not simply add to the effect, but will add more effects. So for instance, a low quality version of a rune that adds a multiple shot effect, may add a bouncing effect at higher qualities.

OR

He could be saying that runes as a whole, as you move up the rarity tree, will be doing more than just adding a flat power bonus to the skill they are applied to.


Then, we've got this next little gem of information..


Basically, this means runes will be much, much more interesting and complex than simple "adds X damage" runes, such as with the power rune.

This fact is also confirmed by the runes that have been announced so far: Power, Energy, Lethality, Multistrike, and Striking.

The Power rune has not had it's purpose revealed, but by the name, we can safely assume that it simply adds more power. The same goes for the energy rune, which probably makes the spell itself more energy efficient.

Then, we have the Lethality, Striking, and Multistrike runes.

Multistrike is pretty self explanatory, it adds multiple strikes to spells. Basically, this allows you to turn skills into a "chain" skills, such as with the skull of flame, which bounces when this rune is inserted into it.

Lethality, is more open to interpretation. The only skill we've seen it with is Electrocute. When socketed with this rune, Electrocute makes the target monster explode when killed by this skill. From this, we can conclude that this rune adds to the overall killing power of the skill, without adding a flat damage bonus.

Then, we've got the Striking rune. This one, when inserted into Teleport, makes it deal area of effect damage upon teleportation. So far, we've been led to believe that this rune turns non-lethal skills, into lethal skills. This open up an incredible amount of customization options. Imagine adding this to a warcry, would it turn it into a skill that sends rippled of force to knock back any nearby enemies, as well as benefitting allies?

In any case, it seems that we're going to be getting near endless skill customization options. Build-experimenters rejoice, your time has come.

Well, more news on Act II, now it seems they're really getting some solid work done on it, as was indicated by their twitter tracker.


Now, of course, this raises the question, just how much have they got done?

Thus far, we know that a boss encounter in Act II has been tested, this news came to us some time ago, so by now they should be wrapping that up.

Also, we know that a boss in Act II has had concept work done, and may soon be going into modelling. Whether these two bosses were the same, was never elaborated upon. I'm assuming that with the time elapsed between both were released, and the fact that concept work was done after testing had occured, that these are two separate bosses.

As for locations, we've been shown dungeons filled with claw vipers, and endless wastes full of zombies and the like. These dungeons were the main location in which the monk demonstration took place, as well as some in the sand wastes, or what are being called the Borderlands.

SO!

We've got bosses, and several locations. The rest has yet to surface, but from the sounds of it, we're going to be shown more of Act II quite soon.

ALSO!

Props to Scyberdragon for already having written up a significant post about the news about Act II, throw some rep at him if you get the chance.

Rejoice, for we have had an interesting month!

Countless discussions, our very own interview with Jay Wilson, and some interesting blue posts to boot, it's been a hell of a month ya'll, and to serve as a torch for those who need to get caught up, we have..

Community Spotlight, Chapter II

As I said, we've had an interesting month so far, and just like last time, we're starting with the forums.

The Forums

This half of the month blew the first out of the water, we've had some incredible discussion on the forums, and to get us started...

We've got Scyberdragon, and his thread about the damage type of the fifth class. He outlined the damage types used, brought in old ideas from Diablo II, and laid the foundation for eight pages of discussion. So far, most think that we'll be getting another physical damage class, be it ranged or melee, is up to another thread to discuss.

Next up is Clew, who noticed one of the twitter posts and made a thread about it. The twitter post stated that we've got more fatalities on the way, which is basically fancy ways to kill our characters. The thread has had extensive discussion on hardcore fatalities (since you'd only see one killing blow). Several have asked the question if this would warrant exclusive hardcore fatalities.

Finally is a forum game. Started by Nacho_ijp, the answer a question with a question game has spanned twelve pages in only several days. While there is no actual game discussion going on in there, thought it would be nice to point out one of the more light hearted threads out there, get in and participate in the madness.

Forum Changes

Sub section time!

We've had two new forum sections added to the website, those being PvP, and PvM sections. So if you've had an urge to set up duels or runs, now you've got a place to do it.

Take a glance up at the navigation bar, at the top of the page.
See that "Twitter Tracker" icon?
It's new!!

Also, we've got a new bi-weekly questionnaire, check it out to ask some questions, which will be answered by the staff here.


Fan Creations

Well, our fan fiction and fan art forums are still relatively inactive, with very infrequent posting within them. Thus, this section will only be included when there are actual updates to show for.

What this means for you, is that if you've got an interesting story to write, or an incredible piece of artwork to show, there is a decent chance that it could make it to the front page. BUT ANYWHO, we've got some art.

Squishie joined us, posted his art, and left us in a flash. However, his drawing of a younger witch doctor still deserves merit. Many thought it looked older, I however, did agree that it looked younger. He looks as if he's sacrificing his own blood to fuel his spells, great work Squish.

The Wiki

Stressful times ahead and we've got turmoil in our beloved wiki.

With Lt. Venom briefly absent, we've got one less wiki sysop to contribute to the goal they're working on, which is outlined here. The wiki team is working on getting item pages, rune, and crafting pages done right now, so if you've got some time to spare, or some time to waste, get yourself over to the wiki and help out.

If you're unsure of how to work on the wiki, or unsure of what to do on the wiki, contact Phrozendragon, or one of the sysops, and they'll point you in the right direction.

Suggestions

Now, a while back, I posted a thread asking for spotlight suggestions. You obliged and threw tons of ideas my way, so make sure to vote on your favorite, the top one (possibly two) will be included in articles to come.
It's possible to vote on multiple choices, so choose all the ones that you want to see make it.


Also!
I'd like to point out that all users are welcome to PM me about any threads, fan art, fan fiction, or users that deserve to be in the spotlight. It's about the community, so it would be best if you got a say in how this thing turns out.

The twitter tracker is starting to make a name for itself, always giving us bits of news for us to salivate and speculate over, all the while not giving us any actual details.

Anyways, this time we've got an interesting quote about the skill system.


So there we have it, skill trees might be out for good. This could be a good thing though, we've just grown so accustomed to skill trees that we haven't taken time to consider what benefits may come of a tree-less skill system.

First off, no longer would we have to waste skill points in skills we never use. Remember in Diablo II, when you had to put a point into Sacrifice to get Blessed Hammer? Nine times out of ten, that was a wasted point that never saw any usage. No longer would we need to waste our points in skills we'll never use.

Also, this will open up countless character customization options. Sure, cookie cutter builds could become even more widespread, but for those players who liked to experiment with new and innovative builds, this will be a godsend. Now, we may be able to take a sampling of skills that work well together, but don't fall into the same skill tabs.

But, in classic Blizzard fashion, they didn't tell us more than we need to know. They left us to ponder what the new skill system could be, and knowing Blizzard, it will probably blow our socks off.

Also, props to Kamori for noticing it first, throw some rep at him if you've got the time.

In case you're not up to speed, we're now releasing bi-weekly Community Spotlight Articles, the first of which was released last Sunday.

Thus far, we've included threads that have garnered impressive discussion, some info on the happening in the wiki, a mandatory fan art and fan fiction section, and a section devoted to the Roleplaying forum, as well as name changes, if they happen.

BUT, we can always add more.

This is where you come in, these articles are about you, the user, so it makes sense to give you a say in what they will include.

Simply put, throw down your ideas for these articles, mainly what they should include, but anything else worth mentioning will be taken into account as well.

This thread will be updated with suggestions as they are posted, and will eventually be made into a poll.

To get you started off, we've considered adding a section for blue posts that didn't get any face time, basically a section for Blizzard posts that got away.


Suggestions

1) Blue/Twitter posts that didn't make it into news, but still stand out.
2) Posts that stand out, such as funniest, worst, most informative, ect.
3) Forum changes (such as the PvP, PvM forums)
4) User of the bi-week.
4.5) Possibly a history included for said user.
5) A quick mention of any new users who made an introduction thread, make them feel more welcomed.
6) A summary of what the wiki team is working on, so users can help out, and so you can expect what new articles are on their way.
7) A blog section