DiabloFans

I know it's just a joke. That is why it's now in the off-topic.

anyone else remember when they made a fake commercial for PS9 and everyone freaked out not getting the joke.

moving this to off-topic

Enjoy talking about a typo

Actually it is >2months but I am still looking very forward to Diablo news at Blizzcon this year. Especially since I am going finally.

Well as of today, Blizzard is still shooting for a 2011 release. That is all I need to hear. That is only four more months. They must really be close if they think they can get it out within four months. The closer and closer the end of the year comes, and the more they say 2011, the more relevant and probable it is.

so, the fact that Mike Morhaime said that they are still pushing for a 2011 release date today means nothing?

I will take his word over some random financial analyst on the inner workings of Blizzard.

Many have speculated on who we will be fighting in Diablo III. It has already been said that a large part of the story revolves around two demons and their impending invasion on Sanctuary. We later found out that these two demons are in fact Belial and Azmodan. We even got news that Belial will be in Act II of the game. However, this left a lot of room of who exactly are the end Act bosses and who we will be fighting throughout the game.

On G4TV's X-Play today, Adam Sessler had an interview with Rob Pardo, Executive Vice-President at Blizzard, who gave some information out about Diablo III. Most of the information he talked about was stuff that we learned about at the press event that Sixen and Force went to. While most of the information is stuff that we already knew, including no release date for beta yet, he did add one little extra bit that gives us a clue on this game.


That's right. Whether he meant to or not, Rob Pardo told us that Big D himself, Diablo, will be the climax of the game. So, it is more than likely that we will be battling Azmodan and Belial before hand and finishing our journey with yet one more epic battle against the Lord of Terror. Just what shape he comes in and how they explain his return is still up in the air, but Diablo III will not be without Diablo.

On a side note of this information, we also know that Blizzard is planning at least a couple expansions for Diablo III so where will the story go from here if Diablo is once again destroyed?

Special thanks to chemedeiros for the source and direct word for word quote.

Live Diablocast is Now Over!

The Recap
The conference concluded with Mike Morhaime's words that they're aiming for beta sometime in the third quarter. With the third quarter concluding with September, that means that, likely at the latest, we can expect beta to begin within a little over a month and a half. Unfortunately, no firm date for beta or release was announced. The team is still planning on a game release before the end of this year.

Conference Call Timeline
2:09 PST: Beta further confirmed for third quarter, and Mike restated team desire to release before end of the year.
2:07 PST: Mike Morhaime began talking about the Auction House feature, specifying safety and security as a reason for implementation.
1:38 PST: Beta confirmed for third quarter. More may be coming later.
1:33 PST: The conference call has finally started. Stay tuned to the Diablocast for all the latest!

The Buildup
Today is Activision/Blizzard's August Conference Call. We here at DiabloFans will be having live coverage of the event. We will be reporting any and all Diablo news released during this call to you guys. Force, Sixen. and myself (scyberdragon) will be holding a live podcast of the coverage starting at 1:00pm PST dicussing the latest Diablo news as well as listening in on the financial conference call for any new news. You can check the live cast from DiabloFans on Facebook, Force Strategy on Facebook, or the DiabloFans IRC Channel.

If the live feed is too awesome for you, I will also be posting any updates right here in this thread. The OP will be continuously updated with any news we get concerning Diablo. While it is unknown exactly what news we will be getting, it is more than likely we will have an update on when they expect the beta to begin.

---

If you missed the Live Stream, you can watch the recording below. We took a question or two, talked about our recent press trip, as well as our opinions on the major changes, switched to the Conference Call when they began talking about Blizzard's goals for Q3, and then had a small discussion before bringing it to a close.

[dfans]

Special thanks to magistrate for keeping everyone updated to the minute

Hack'n and Slash'n
Loot
Randomization

All three are still in the game and all improved upon. This is what makes D3 a Diablo game.

Hack & Slash - New robust AI and deeper combat mechanics
Loot- Moar!! Each class with their own look plus dozens of new affixes, 18 tiers of armor, ...
Randomization - quests, areas, dungeons worth going into

I think the hardest thing to read out of all of the "criticism" is people judging a product they have not even tried. They take everything at face value and make a judgement on the entire product without looking at the whole picture. Any one thing may seem bad if you do not balance it out with the numerous other systems that help balance it.

Thanks for the refreshing thread and I too, can't wait to play this game in all of its glory.

You were always fighting the same person multiple times. In the old arena, you just did it in multiple rounds.

I am happy with this change. I would hate to die right off the bat and have to sit there and wait for up to 3 mins while the rest dueled it out. Either way, we are fighting the same team for the same duration. They just got rid of people having to wait to fight again. Looking at the old videos, it seems that the rounds ended too quickly anyway. Why wait for a whole fresh reset when you can just keep the action going in the same round.

How does that ruin the game?

You can also buy these items for gold so....

and playing a game on-line and an MMO are tow different ideologies. You have agreed that the main part of MMO, the MM, is not present in Diablo. So, Diablo is an O game.

PvP will still be fun. It's not like they are abandoning it all together. In fact, they only thing that has changed since blizzcon is that it is now a team death match instead of a survivor scenario.

There will be a separate leveling system with PvP to track your porgress. There is a part of the banner dedicated solely for PvP to show off you PvP skills.

The only thing is that the direct rank for matchmaking will not be shown.

I like how so many people are complaining about 4 players not being enough per game. Yet, you think the ability to have up to four people playing on-line makes the game a massive multi-player on-line game.

Forcing players on-line ends thousands of possibilities of people cheating. How is that bad?

As for the RM AH, don't use it.

You should really learn what an MMO is before you start making loose associations to try to prove your opinion.

I like how you completely disregard any skill for winning in PvP. If you think that whoever has the best gear in PvP has an "I win" button, then you must not understand PvP.

Any disabling trade of any sort is a ridiculous notion for a game with random drops. All players need to trade to get the best items for their character. So, if PvP players are not allowed to trade for gear, then they have to spend all of their time playing PvE and will never get to PvP anyway.

I'm all for suggestions for different ideas but please put some thought into them before hand.