DiabloFans

This week's Community Commentary shout-out goes to Diablo Stats, which is an interactive hero progression site created by Rek currently in beta testing.

The goal of Diablo Stats is to track hero progression over time and make item comparisons easier with built-in damage and effective hit point (EHP) calculators. It's a great way to see how your heroes' stats change and progress over time, and Rek would really enjoy if other players jumped in and offered feedback so that he can further refine his project.

You can get started by visiting Diablo Stats and typing in your BattleTag into the "Add or Search" box on the top right. From there, it should generate a page for your account for you to dive into and compare with other players.

So make sure to check out Rek's great new site, and take a few moments to leave feedback so that he can take it to the next level. You can do this by leaving a comment in his original thread over on Reddit, the thread he created on our forums, or you can drop a comment below!

Captcha System for Bot Prevention?
This is indeed a concern we have with CAPTCHA systems, which is that they can feel very intrusive and annoying for legitimate players.

If CAPTCHA means no boters the then im fine with it even there is every 30 minutes some checkpoint.
Yep, I know many would not mind this at all (chosing the lesser evil and all that), but there are people who would be very annoyed by a CAPTCHA system like the one suggested here.

Bear in mind Vaneras the CAPTCHA only need appear at all if the client/servers detect activity that may be botting. And a legitimate player detected in this way, that has answered the CAPTCHA a few times, will have the time between CAPTCHA's massively increased.

So once running it will be something like, excluding the botters:
90% of players will never see a CAPTCHA
10% of players, who trigger the bot match pattern, will very quickly have it reduced down to say once every 2 days or even more.

Thanks for the feedback though.
Sure, a CAPTCHA system combined with other detection systems would be an improvement, in that legitimate players would be less likely to be bothered by it. If we were ever to implement a CAPTCHA system, this type of approach would likely be considered :-) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

What More Does a Community Manager Do?
This is rather off-topic, but I will answer it anyway as this is a question I get fairly often.

As a CM I am often privy to information regarding the development of the game, but I do not know everything of course as I am not a developer. Some of the things I know I am unable to share right now as said things are still eligible to change.

The developers get player questions and feedback from us all the time, but it is not always that they are able to answer said questions and feedback because they have not yet decided on the best way of doing so. The processes for everything the developers do are all very iterative, and this means that things can change dramatically before they reach certainty. Once the developers have made their decision on something though, that is when we can give you information and be sure that it is the correct information.

Basically what I am trying to say is that the right answer to a question one day may be wrong answer the day after, so we prefer not to give answers until we are certain that they are the right ones. I can assure you that when I do have info to "answer advanced stuff concerning the game", I will share that info with you right away. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Don't Report Bots as a Real Life Threat
I don’t know the details around this particular situation, but this information is a little incomplete, so I will provide some more info to help clarify.

Reporting a player for any infraction (including botting) is fine, but it should be done through proper channels. The best place to report a player for botting or other exploitative behavior is through our online web form, and you can find more information about that here: http://us.battle.net...pic/6246615165. However, reporting players in a public place should be avoided since it can result in a forum suspension. Similarly, the Report > Real-Life Threat in-game option should only be used for situations in which another player has threatened violence or harm that is not directly related to the game world, or if he/she has released real life information about other players or Blizzard employees. Abusing this report system can lead to an account action, so we strongly suggest that you please use it appropriately. You might want to review our online harassment for more details: https://us.battle.ne...assment-policy. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Fa la la la la, mwah HA HA HA...

Every year around this time, just as the holiday season reaches its zenith, the community team begins its annual tradition of preparing for the road ahead (pending apocalypses be damned). But as we began to schedule our meetings for brainstorming what kind of cool projects and promotions we wanted to do for 2013, we realized...we had absolutely no where to hold department gatherings anymore. We'd run out of meeting rooms!

Our mission became clear. The primary objective? Empty out the office we'd been using as storage space and turn it into the finest meetin' room this side of Sanctuary. The bonus objective? Discover what treasure lurked in its depths and present the bounty to as many worthy companions as possible.


So, under the pallid glare of fluorescents (and to the tune of The A Team theme song), we destroyed that office's defenses, looting everything its box-ridden corpse had to offer. To our delight, after carefully cataloguing our spoils -- and checking the lists twice -- we identified the following rare items:

• Signed Diablo III Collector's Editions (over 30!)
• Mini Tyrael statues (over 40!)
• Books of Cain
• Diablo III pins
• Diablo II action figures
• Some Battle.net Authenticators featuring everyone's favorite Prime Evil
• And a bunch of World of Warcraft swag

We decided the best recipients of all this sweet stuff would be you, our mighty community, and picked a few awesome allies to help us distribute the goods:

• Diablo Fans
• /r/Diablo
• Diablo IncGamers
• D3DB
• D3Sanc
• Diablo Expressions
• Diablo Sanctuary
• Kripparrian

We're letting these sites set the terms for how and when everything's given away, so be sure to tune in to their front pages (or video streams) for possible holiday swag sightings. We can't wait to see what kind of epic contests, challenges, or raffles they might have in store!


Good luck to everyone who participates in the giveaways, and a big thank you to our Diablo III fan sites who've not only helped us reclaim precious meeting space, but also provided a wealth of support, coverage, and cause for conversation in this year of our Lord (of Terror), 2012.

P.S. Here's a sweet digital painting of a barbarian in a Santa suit. Why? Because beards.