At approximately midnight Pacific time here on the 8th of May, 2013, the servers for Diablo III were kept in good standing where a consideration was cut: administrators decided not to roll back the entire game. Where administrators were forced to consider rolling the game back to an earlier point in time this week, they’ve instead made a move to find the creators of the bug and destroy them. Or boot them from the game, that is.

This mess began late last night when a gold duplication bug was identified by Battle.net. It was then that they began cutting all gold trades across the game’s online servers from top to bottom, keeping then normal trades of items where no gold was involved. As maintenance concluded less than an hour later, administrators suggested a fix was in the works that’d be implemented soon after.

“At this time (and after careful consideration), we’ve decided to not move forward with rolling back the servers. We feel that this is the best course of action given the nature of the dupe, how relatively few players used it, and the fact that its effects were fairly limited within the region. We’ve been able to successfully identify players who duplicated gold by using this specific bug, and are focusing on these accounts to make corrections.

While this is a time-consuming and very detailed process, we believe it’s the most appropriate choice given the circumstances. We know that some of you may disagree, but we feel that performing a full roll back would impact the community in an even greater way, as it would require significant downtime as well as revert the progress legitimate players have made since patch 1.0.8 was released this morning.” – Administrator Lylirra for Battle.net

So no worries for those of you out there worrying about the awesome number of levels you’ve jumped since yesterday: you’re good to go. Meanwhile Battle.net will be hunting down the culprits of this terrible economy-wrecking madness non-stop until they are found. This auction house has been under fire since the beginning of the game, having most recently been the subject of scrutiny via former Diablo III director Jay Wilson who made it clear: if they could pull the plug on the real-money part of the auction house, they would.

However, a standard BlizzCon ticket isn’t the only way gamers can gain access to the event. Blizzard will also be selling 200 tickets on May 1st that will allow players to attend both BlizzCon and the BlizzCon Benefit Dinner, which is set to take place on November 7th. The dinner will benefit the Children’s Hospital of Orange County, and will let guests dine and converse with the Blizzard team before the weekend festivities.

At BlizzCon, Blizzard will be hosting a whole bunch of events and activities that will show everyone a great time. Players will be able to play demos of Blizzard’s latest games, participate in discussion panels with Blizzard’s developers, and even watch the StarCraft II World Championship Series Global Finals live at the event. The event will appeal to gamers from all of Blizzard’s franchises, including Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo.

If you are unable to attend the event, you are still able to stream it live by purchasing a BlizzCon Virtual Ticket. With the virtual ticket, you are able to enjoy various aspects of BlizzCon through Blizzard’s multi-channel streams. For those of you who want a standard BlizzCon ticket, you will be able to purchase them on April 24th starting at 7:00PM PDT, and April 27th starting at 10:00AM PDT. Tickets to the benefit dinner will go on sale May 1st at 7:00PM PDT. Standard tickets will cost $175, and tickets to the dinner will cost $500. No pricing on the virtual tickets is available yet. You can purchase your ticket(s) from this link, but be sure to act fast as these tickets usually sell out very quickly.

[via Blizzard]

As it was back in Diablo II, this update should be bringing the experience you’re getting in Diablo III up to par – you’ll find yourself running wild in single-player missions (still online, of course), but with friends you’ll now have added benefits far beyond those you’ve seen before. Blizzard has made a number of changes to the game in this new patch, noting the following about the push:

“The point is that multiplayer can be lot of fun, but given the downsides it can often feel not worth the effort. By making it easier for players to find one another, improving social features, and providing direct buffs to co-op groups, we hope to change that perspective.” – Blizzard Entertainment

Matchmaking Tags

With patch 1.0.8 you’ll have the added option in “additional options” when making a new game right below your difficulty rating that allows you to “tag” the match. You’ll be able to choose “no tag” or questing, brawling (PvP), Full Act Clear, or Key Warden. This will make it so you’re rolling out with players aiming to blast forth with the same aims as you.

Multiplayer Bonuses

As you enter a multiplayer game, you’ll find that Blizzard has added a 10% more XP boost per player for a max bonus of 30% more XP in a 4-player game. According to Blizzard, this bonus will be multiplicative with MP bonuses already in place.

MP10 with XP bonus in Inferno of 510% (plus normal 100% is 610%)
+ 4 player game with 3 other players in-game 30%
= 793% as much XP as normal

This also works with Magic Find and Gold Find, but with these you’ll be able to surpass your until-now max of 300% of both. You’ll get an additional “flat” 10% Magic and Gold find with each new player that joins the game.

Monster Health

Where before this week, each monster gained 70% extra health for each new player joining a game, you’ll now find them gaining just 50%. The difference should be just enough to allow your tiny ill-equipped buddy to join your game and not be slaughtered instantly.

Identify All

Not just for your multiplayer experiences, this one button should make the process of looking at items you’ve collected with the greatest of ease. No more click, click, click for you! This was also a Diablo II staple returning for the D3 fun.

Archon Kills

Before this week, most Wizards may have been skipping multiplayer simply because kills didn’t fuel Archon adequately – no kills, no magic! Here in 1.0.8, Archon duration is extended by assists. This means if you’ve even so much as thrown pin prick of a spell at a monster and are still around when it dies, your Archon duration will be extended.

Combat Alerts

Picking up on the trends seen in real-deal multiplayer games every day, Blizzard has decided to automatically alert all players in games when a player deals or takes damage from an Elite pack or Treasure Goblin for the first time. A new “combat” icon will appear on your mini-map, and combat icon will appear above your banner in town, too! Bad luck for those of you hoping to sneak into multiplayer games and fight by yourself!

Players Near You

You’ll be given the same alerts (basically the same, anyway) as StarCraft II users get now when you’ve got players logged into Diablo III in your own local network. If you’re playing at your College or hit up local internet hotspots where gaming is a norm, connections can be made real swift! Of course if you hate meeting people and want to play with users across the universe, you can still do so without a problem.

Private Chat

With patch 1.0.8 you’ll be able to start your own private conversation – up to 99 players can join if you invite them. This is essentially the same thing you did in Diablo II when you created a room to have a chat in about what items you wanted to trade, or re-grouped after a fabulous battle. Chats ho!

Wrap-up

This update will be pushed to you automatically starting this week – if you don’t see the update, you’ll likely see it in the next week or two. Those of you wishing to get in on the patch right this minute can head over to the Diablo III Public Test Realm FAQ and see how you can participate. Make with the clicks!

Wilson also commented about the Diablo III’s gold auction house and real-money auction house. He stated that both services had a negative impact on the game, namely because they both drive players away from the real goal of beating Diablo. He states that 50% of the players utilize the auction house, and find it the main motivating factor to playing the game. He says that Blizzard is working to return the game’s emphasis onto the actual storyline.

Diablo III has done very well in the marketplace, selling over 12 million copies to date. The game was able to retain at least 25% of its audience, which is an impressive figure considering there isn’t too much to do after you finish the game (except farm awesome, expensive gear). Blizzard may be able to draw a lot more of its customers back to the game once it launches its Team Deathmatch mode. Blizzard is trying to make the PVP system more entertaining by implementing objectives, rather than just making it a “whack each other” type of gameplay.

Diablo III should also be seeing a slight boost in its active players soon, at least once the game hits the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. The new game has been modified to better operate on consoles. The console version of Diablo III will have all of the aspects of the current PC version of the game. There are Monster Power settings, Paragon levels, PVP (full version coming soon), and a lot more. It will also remove the Always-On DRM, and will offer 4-player split-screen co-op.

Diablo III should be seeing some major changes in the future. A few months ago, Diablo III’s former game director, Jay Wilson, decided to leave his position to pursue new projects in Blizzard. He spent 7 years on Diablo III, but has decided to hand over the reigns to someone else. It’ll be interesting to see the direction the new game director will be taking Diablo III, however until then, Jay Wilson has stated that he will still help the game in the transition process.

[via Gamespot]

If you have a travel down our Diablo III tag portal, you find a series of stories that are just as often negative and full of disappointment as they are exciting and action-packed. This release was one of the most long-awaited in the history of gaming, with 8 years separating the second installment of the series (Diablo II in 2000) and the announcement of this title.

Though Diablo III was first announced in 2008, it was only actually released to the public on May 15th, 2012. That’s one massive amount of time for a game to be in development, especially with the 5-minutes-of-fame atmosphere we’re in now. Then there’s the bits and pieces that Blizzard has had to change right from the outset. Today’s big kicker is the announcement from former Diablo 3 Game Director Jay Wilson.

Speaking with Joystiq this week about Diablo III’s real money action house, he suggested that the feature has “really hurt the game.” According to Wilson, over 50 percent of the players that play regularly use the auction house, while most of the auction house’s use is with in-game virtual gold rather than with real cash.

Because of this gold use, not necessarily the real money, motivation to collect gold and broken items (otherwise useless, able to be sold in the game to virtual vendors for gold), have become far more popular goals for users. There’s simply not as much junk everywhere anymore – Diablo II continues to be a massive mess of item drops and coins.

“I think we would turn it off if we could, [but it's] not as easy as that.” – Wilson

Citing the near-impossible task of figuring out how much of the Diablo III user population wants the auction house to stick around or be kicked to the curb, Wilson was clear on one point: they are looking for a “solution.” A solution to what, exactly, we might never know.

Diablo 3 on the PlayStation 3 will feature all of the current offerings of the PC version of the game. There will be Paragon levels after you reach level 60, Monster Power settings, PvP, and more. Along with those additions, there is also one, very important selling point. The game will have 4-player split-screen co-op. So you, and 3 of your friends, will be able to join together to take on Diablo in a nostalgic, Champions of Norrath/Gauntlet Dark Legacy-like way.

Diablo 3 has seen great commercial success, selling over 12 million PC copies to date, however the game had received a lot of negative criticism shortly after its launch.  It received negative criticism for its Always-on DRM, previously difficult gameplay (like floors blanketed in desecration and plague), and lack of end-game content. Many consumers complained that it was the worst Diablo, if not the worst game, ever. The developers were able to make the game more enjoyable by adding a lot more content (like the Infernal Machine), dramatically reducing the difficulty of monsters and their affixes, and by allowing players to choose the difficulty of their gameplay via Monster Power levels.

There isn’t any specific release date for the Playstation 3 version of Diablo 3, but we do know that it will be released for the PlayStation 4 in the future as well. The developers of the game have also stated that the game isn’t necessarily a Sony-exclusive, so we could be seeing the game on other consoles like Nintendo’s Wii U and the Xbox 360/720. And many of you will be pleased to know that the console game will have an offline mode.

It looks like Blizzard is going back to their roots, yes consoles were originally their roots. Blizzard has entered into a partnership with Sony and will be bringing many games to the PlayStation 4. One of the most popular games that I’m sure many of you are excited about is Diablo III. It will be available on both the PS3 which we already knew, and now the new PS4.

Using the PlayStation cloud service you’ll be able to enjoy classic games like Diablo III right on your PS4. Alternatively it will probably also support Remote Play for streaming to your PS Vita and more. The biggest news here isn’t Diablo III though, the big news is Blizzard has entered into a partnership with Sony.

While we don’t know exactly what this all entails at this point, you can expect to see and hear plenty in the upcoming weeks and months from Blizzard. The massive PC developers behind World of Warcraft and tons of other popular titles will now be developing games for the PlayStation 4. Hopefully at E3 and PAX East 2013 we’ll learn all the details. Who’s excited?

At the annual BlizzCon convention, gamers from World of Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo all get together to witness the next big thing Blizzard has to offer. At BlizzCon 2013, players will be able to get a hands-on demonstration of the latest Blizzard games, become an audience to a discussion panel with Blizzard’s game developers and artists, have competitive, yet casual tournaments with other fellow gamers, compete in contests, purchase Blizzard’s gaming merchandice, and more. The global finals for the Battle.net World Champsionship Series will also be making its debut at BlizzCon 2013, where select top pro-gamers from all around the world will compete.

Blizzard wasn’t able to hold its annual BlizzCon event in 2012 because of the company’s jam-packed schedule. It was in the process of launching its latest installment of the Diablo series, Diablo 3, as well as the World of Wacraft: Mists of Panderia expansion. It was also in the process of developing its StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm expansion.

BlizzCon 2011 was a major success, and tickets sold out within seconds, so there’s no time to think once the tickets for BlizzCon 2013 goes on sale. While you’re thinking, someone else (or rather thousands of other people) will have already confirmed their purchase. You don’t want to be left out of Blizzard’s biggest event of the year. Blizzard has also launched a site that will let you book your hotel in advance with special BlizzCon rates. Will you be attending this year?

One of the reasons Blizzard is “going back to the drawing board” with Team Deathmatch is due to the mode’s lack of depth. Wilson admits that the mode gets boring pretty quickly when there aren’t any objectives outside of hitting your opponents with the biggest weapon you can find, so the team will attempt to flesh out the mode with more features in this second attempt.

Team Deathmatch as it existed at Blizzard also wasn’t going work because of issues will class balance. A big problem is that Diablo III is a PvE game before anything else, and since Blizzard wanted to bring over as many skills, items, and abilities as it could while changing as little as possible, it put too much of a focus on class balance. While Wilson said this is okay for games like World of Warcraft, it wasn’t the kind of focus the studio wanted to put on Diablo III.

So, it sounds like Team Deathmatch won’t be arriving for quite some time. If you absolutely can’t wait for PvP in Diablo III, you’re in luck, because Wilson closes his post by saying that dueling will be going live in the game with update 1.0.7, which is due sometime early next year. Blizzard will be sharing more details on the dueling update soon, so we’ll be keeping an ear to ground for those.

“We’re still kind of exploring it,” Blizzard chief creative officer Rob Pardo said. “We’ve got builds up and running on it. We’re hoping to get it far enough along where we can make it an official project, but we’re not quite ready to release stuff about it, but it’s looking pretty cool.” So, there isn’t going to be any announcement today, but there could be one at some point down the road. Lead designer Jay Wilson also confirmed that the company is testing the console waters, but didn’t want to elaborate any further.

Admittedly, such an announcement seems unlikely, but Blizzard is apparently still playing around with the idea. We’ve been hearing whispers of a console version since well before Diablo III launched for PC and Mac earlier this year, but aside from Blizzard mentioning that it’s been testing things out, there hasn’t been anything to go on. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens, but it kind of goes without saying that the PC and Mac versions take priority over a console version that may never see the light of day.

That further complicates things, as we know that Blizzard is planning to release an expansion for Diablo III at some point in the future. When you couple that with the fact that there are still features missing from the PC version – such as the highly anticipated PvP mode – then Blizzard may not have the resources to put into a console port. We’ll keep an ear to the ground for more information, but for now, it’s probably a good idea to just settle for the PC version of Diablo III.

Its earnings per share for the quarter also grew year-over-year and topped projections. The company is reporting a GAAP earnings per share of $0.20, rising $0.07 from the year prior and beating projections by a healthy $0.14. Non-GAAP net revenue came in at $751 million for the quarter, while non-GAAP earnings per share is at $0.15. Since the company performed better than expected in Q3, it has revised its forecast for the full year, now expecting GAAP net revenue to come in at $4.57 billion as compared to a previous projection of $4.33 billion.

In the earnings call to accompany this report, Blizzard‘s Mike Morhaime announced that the studio is planning an expansion to Diablo III, though didn’t give any other details on it. We also heard the unfortunate news that StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm won’t make a 2012 release, though that was pretty easy to figure out considering that it’s now November. Now Blizzard is shooting for a first-half 2013 release date for Heart of the Swarm, though it wouldn’t out an specific release date.

Now Activision is in its Q4, which will definitely be bigger than the quarters before it thanks to next week’s release of Black Ops II and the fact that the holiday shopping season will shortly be in full swing. Make no mistake, Black Ops II is going to make Activision a lot of money in Q4, as will Skylanders Giants. We’ll be watching for Activision’s next round of financials at the end of Q4, so keep it tuned here to SlashGear for more.

This system allows players to progress past level 60 and is what Blizzard hopes will be a way for people to stay interested in one character rather than having to start over constantly when they’re bored with their top-level hero. Blizzard describes the Paragon system with the following set of bonuses:

• After you hit level 60, any further experience you earn from killing monsters will begin to count toward Paragon levels.
• There are 100 Paragon levels

– Every Paragon level will reward you with:
• Core stats such as Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Vitality in amounts similar to what you’d gain from a normal level
• 3% Magic Find and 3% Gold Find

• In addition, a distinctive increasingly-impressive border will surround your character portrait in the in-game party frame to denote your Paragon progression, with a new frame earned after every ten levels. Your Paragon level will also be visible to other players wherever your normal level is shown.

This upgrade also changes the game to include a 300% cap on Magic Find and Gold Find. When you reach level 100 in Paragon, you’ll no longer need Magic Find or Gold Find gear because your character will be maxed out no matter what. Nephalem Valor, a system which gives level 60 characters incentive to fight multiple enemies in the same game rather than leaving a game to create a new game to fight that same monster. With the Paragon system in place, NV also adds 15% to your experience gain to level up inside the Paragon system.

So head on out and start leveling up 100 more levels, all you Diablo III addicts! Then wait a few more months and perhaps there’ll be more levels still, with another different title besides!

Be sure to check out the diverse timeline of Diablo III news bits and columns below, and let us know if you’re playing the game right now!

[via Blizzard]

When it comes to staying safe after the hack, the first place you’ll probably want to start is changing your password. Blizzard says that the intruders only made off with cryptographically scrambled versions of passwords – meaning that it wasn’t your actual password that was stolen – but its investigation is still ongoing. It could find more evidence of password theft as time goes on, but even if it doesn’t, changing your password as soon as you can isn’t a bad idea. This is especially true if your password for battle.net is the same one you use for other online accounts (if that’s the case, be sure to change those too).

Blizzard says in the FAQ that while mobile and dial-in authenticators were compromised (dial-in authenticators to a lesser degree), physical authenticators are still believed to be intact. This means that if you have a physical authenticator, now is the time to use it, and keep on using it if you were already. In the event that these hackers do manage to figure out your password, the physical authenticator will provide an extra layer of defense. Some claim that Blizzard’s authenticators aren’t a sure thing, and that may be the case, but in this situation there isn’t much reason to believe you’re actually better off without one.

Now for something that is a bit alarming: answers to secret questions were taken during this breach. When paired with an email address, that could provide an easy way into your account, and the bad news is that there currently isn’t a way to change the answers to your secret questions. Even worse is the fact that Blizzard has opted not to suspend secret questions, as it believes that leaving them active does more good than harm. In any case, Blizzard will be asking battle.net users to update their security questions soon, and it’s a very good idea that you do so as soon as possible after receiving the prompt. Doing so closes a backdoor that hackers could use to easily gain access to your account.

Make no mistake, this breach could have been a lot worse, but the steps above will still help ensure that you stay safe as Blizzard continues its investigation and begins rolling out software updates. We’ll likely be finding out more about the breach in the coming days, so keep it tuned to SlashGear for more information.

However, even though Activision managed to exceed expectations, it still came up a bit short when compared to the same quarter last year. In Q2 2011, Activision managed to pull in a net revenue of $1.146 billion and was able to boast an earnings per share of $0.29. A significant difference to be sure, but that doesn’t mean Activision had a bad quarter.

It was quite the opposite actually, with Activision announcing that Diablo III has brought in a whopping 10 million players since launching on May 15. We already knew that 3.5 million of those sales occurred in the game’s first 24 hours of availability, and with roughly 1 million of those players getting in for free thanks to the World of Warcraft annual pass, that leaves about 5.5 million sales in the three months since launch.

World of Warcraft‘s subscriber numbers are down a bit, with Activision reporting 9.1 million monthly subscribers at the end of the quarter. That’s a little low compared to where World of Warcraft was at its peak, but those numbers will probably get a boost (at least temporarily) when Mists of Pandaria is released in September. Activision also announced that Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure was the number best-selling console game in the first six months of the year “overall in dollars,” which is to say that the company had to count the toy sales in order to name Skylanders the top-selling game.

The company has upped its outlook for the year as a whole to $4.33 billion, and expects to bring in $740 million next quarter. Activision’s boosted outlook is based on the upcoming releases of Mists of Pandaria, Black Ops II, and Skylanders Giants, so that expectation could change if one of those games under-performs. Even if that happens, though, it’s pretty clear that Activision is poised to rake in a ton of cash this year, so we’ll let you go back to wishing you were Bobby Kotick now.

According to German gaming site PC Gamer (via CinemaBlend), the group has given Blizzard until July 27 to repackage Diablo III boxes and make the always-on requirement clearer to prospective buyers. If Blizzard doesn’t comply, then the group may bring the issue before a judge. The group argues that consumers should be warned of things like always-on DRM (and the server downtime that could occur as a result) before purchasing the product, and that the fine-print warning which currently graces the back of Diablo III‘s box simply doesn’t cut it.

That sounds like a pretty reasonable demand, to be honest. Sure, those who read gaming blogs on a regular basis were up in arms about the online requirement months before the game released, but the majority of players probably don’t check gaming blogs all that often. So, the Federation of Consumer Organizations is making a demand that will surely be popular with the many disgruntled Diablo III owners out there, but will it work? That remains to be seen. Keep it tuned to SlashGear for more information on this rather interesting development.

The exploit is performed by using the Wizard’s Teleport and Archon abilities in quick succession. One poster on the Blizzard forums listed the steps required to make this exploit work, but Blizzard has since removed the step-by-step guide to making your Wizard invulnerable. Kotaku managed to swipe the list before Blizzard moderators were able to take it down, however, so here’s what you need to do in order to enjoy a risk-free romp through Sanctuary:

Step 1: Select Teleport – Fracture. Bind it to a key
Step 2: Select Archon, tested with Improved Archon
Step 3: Hover your mouse over or near your charcter
Step 4: Press Teleport
Step 5: QUICKLY(!) Press Archon

Many other posters in the thread have confirmed that the exploit works, and though some say that it takes a couple of tries to get the rhythm down, pulling off this exploit is apparently pretty simple once you get the hang of it. As with other game-breaking exploits and bugs in Diablo III, Blizzard will likely push a fix out the door quickly, so if you’re planning on making use of this particular exploit, do so with the knowledge that it probably won’t be long before Blizzard fixes it.

Hours-long gaming marathons are nothing new to players (we’re all guilty of them after all), but lately we’ve been hearing more and more about these extremely long gaming sessions that end with the player dying. The actual cause of death isn’t known, but authorities are guessing that remaining in a sitting position for so many hours straight might have caused some cardiovascular problems. It’s also possible that Chuang suffered from some unknown medical condition, which could have been aggravated by his 40 hour long gaming binge. The truth is, we won’t know what killed Chuang until the autopsy – which is underway now – has been completed.

Diablo III developer Blizzard issued a statement earlier today, sending out its thoughts to Chuang’s family and urging players to exercise moderation while enjoying their favorite games. “While we recognise that it’s ultimately up to each individual or their parent or guardian to determine playing habits,” Blizzard says, “we feel that moderation is clearly important, and that a person’s day-to-day life should take precedence over any form of entertainment.”

[via The Australian]

There is a moment playing Diablo games when it hits you. Why am I still playing? It’s a tough question to wrestle with, since this is the same question that could ruin all video games for you. What’s the point? So, I started to think about my favorite games. Some games have a great story line. You can make different choices each time, and affect the outcome, subtly or drastically. Some games are interspersed with amazing set pieces so massive in scale that you cannot wait to reach them. Some games offer challenging puzzles, with multiple ways to solve them, so you can constantly replay to try each permutation.

Most of all, though, the best games are simply fun to play. Video games run with the idea that “half the fun is getting there.” In the best games, that’s almost all of the fun. There are very few games that I replay continually just to see the ending. The actual gameplay has to be very fun. In fact, the gameplay has to be just as fun when you lose as when you win. I have a maxim of gaming that you should never expect to complete a gaming task once. Even the most difficult feat in gaming will often be repeated. So, it must be fun. Losing has to be almost as enjoyable as winning.

Diablo is simply no fun. The gameplay is beyond repetitive. It’s inane. It’s completely lifeless. It is mouse clicking with a few keyboard shortcuts thrown in. The entire game boils down to: look at that monster, I’m going to click on it until it’s dead. There is very little skill, or even thought involved in playing the game. There are no puzzles to solve, no riddles, no mysteries. There is a plot, but it is almost entirely revealed in high-quality cut scene movies between the action. Almost nothing you do in the game feels like it is contributing to the storyline.

It used to be that Diablo was about collecting cool weapons and leveling-up your character. You play more and you gain more awesome toys and cool abilities. To a small extent that is still true. But Blizzard has made serious mistakes in the game design and, at the risk of sounding cynical, it seems that much of the problem comes from the new auction house. Users can now buy and sell items in the game with real money. Blizzard takes a huge cut, of course, but you’re still making money from playing the game.

However, look where this has left the game experience. Items are now worth money, which means that Blizzard needs to create an entire level of items that is at once nearly-unobtainable and also very valuable. This pushes down the value of almost all other items in the game. Any item that is not ‘magical,’ which is to say the overwhelming bulk of the items you find, is completely worthless to the player. These items do not add to the gameplay at all, and you can’t sell them. Blizzard has strewn its virtual world with tons of virtual garbage.

Characters gain new abilities as they gain experience, but often these seem like a step backwards. I get new powers that add or augment my existing abilities, but these are often less interesting, or less powerful, than the powers I already had. The special effects look cool, but the action on screen can be jumbled and confusing at times. So, no matter how cool it looks, you are essentially just clicking on a massive pile of bad guys, and repeating this simple act until they all stop moving.

So, Diablo III has some very fundamental flaws, but it is the little things that bother me even more. Some of these are endemic to the hack-and-slash dungeon crawler genre, but the genre, and gaming in general, has grown up significantly in the 11 years since Diablo II was released. While competitors are creating deep virtual worlds and immersive environments, Blizzard has taken the laziest route possible with Diablo III.

Here are some of my favorite examples. In the game, you might have to kill a swarm of bugs. That swarm acts like one single enemy, but looks like a swarm. So, you just click your mouse on it, and your character starts shooting at flies with a crossbow. Some of these flies are so scary your character will run away from them, even though they look like all the other flies, and you wouldn’t know they strike such fear in the hearts of men unless you read the description, which says simply “nightmarish.” Okay, fine, your character kills these nightmarish flies and is rewarded with . . . a suit of armor? What?! Seriously, I’m supposed to believe that this swarm of flies was carrying a suit of armor? What the heck were flies doing with armor? And 80 gold coins? Where did they keep them? I suppose flies in Diablo III have pockets.

There are a few non-player characters, and you are forced to listen to the same repetitive dialogue from them over and over again. It has nothing to do with the plot or the action on screen. You could be fighting a nest of giant spiders, and the Enchantress character will ask if you think one of the boy characters likes her. You could be literally descending into the depths of Hell, and the Scoundrel character might talk about the women he’s taken advantage of. It’s boring and nonsensical, and worst of all, it’s repetitive. Each character has maybe a dozen lines or so that they spew at the weirdest moments, but over the course of a 20 – 30 hour game, you’ll hear these lines over and over again. And you can’t kill these characters. Trust me, I’ve tried.

Diablo III is simply an example of the laziest form of game design. It is as though Blizzard tried to imagine the least effort they could put into improving Diablo II while still calling this a new game, and then cut out half of those ideas. Blizzard has created a world that will make you feel worthless for revisiting. Why am I still playing? I’m not. I’m done.

This update appears to have come down in the newest patch to the game, that being version 1.0.3 just pushed this past week. What we’re to understand is that the following is true of all digital purchases – not physical purchases – if they’ve not had the game for more than 72 hours:

• Act I up to the Skeleton King is as far as you go
• Level 13 cap
• Matchmaking available only with other Starter Edition players
• No Auction House access (Real Money or Gold)
• Global Play is not available
• Players attempting to connect to Diablo III Starter Edition in a region other than their Battle.net account’s home region will receive Error 12

You’ll still need internet access to play, and Blizzard has released the following statement regarding the situation:

“Digital purchases do require a review period before they kick over from Starter to Full editions. We apologize for the inconvenience, but it is a necessary step to combat fraud and other malicious activities that can weaken everyone’s play experience. The delay is no longer than three days, and is often much quicker than that. Hang tight. :)” – Blizzard Spokesperson

The last comment we must assume means that the people waiting for full access are to hold tight, not that they plan on changing this set of limits any time soon. Let us know what you think of this system, or otherwise keep on crushing the demons as you were!

Next the patch will have multiple plays of the same quest yielding smaller rewards each time – a change we’re sure will be met with some major opposition by lovers of the big item drops. Finally the real-money auction house has been spread to Chilean, Argentinian, and Brazilian currencies. This comes in addition to the real money auction house officially – for real this time – being available for everybody in the Americas.

Diablo III’s newest patch has a few more fixes in the mix as well, as outlined here:

General
• Friends will now sort alphabetically by name within the Friends List, first by Real ID and then by BattleTag
• The Quick Join menu will now also sort alphabetically by name, first by Real ID and then by BattleTag
• Chat settings and preferences will now be saved whenever you log out
• Reporting another player using the Report > Spam option will now mute that player for the duration of your gaming session

Bug Fixes
• Using the /who command in a heavily populated chat channel should no longer cause the client to crash
• The “Invite to Party” button should no longer become grayed-out if a player:
- Declines a party invite
- Requests a party invite and then declines it
- Accepts a party invite, but then immediately leaves the party
- The character screen should now always display the correct act and quest information
• If Real ID has been disabled for a Battle.net account, attempting to add a Real ID friend in Diablo III will now prompt the player with the following error message: “Battle.net is unable to add friends because you have Real ID disabled.”

This patch also includes a massive list of changes to characters longer than the average players attention span, so head on over to Battle.net to keep fully up to date! Otherwise feel free to head down to the timeline we’ve got below to stay fresh on all your Diablo III needs!

This update is only available today for those of you out there that physically picked up the game from the store, strangely enough. You’ll have to wait three more days to get access if you downloaded the game like I did. Once you’re there, you’ll find that some people have already bid items up to $200 USD and more. Right now it seems like items are being set on the market at around $30 with buyouts set at $250 USD – if you’re good to go with a few thousand bucks, you can trick your character out right now!

Your account is connected to your Battle.NET account, of course, where Blizzard takes a 15 percent cut when you transfer your funds out to PayPal. You’ll have to use PayPal, yes, and each time you do a transaction you’ll be paying $1.00 as well. These costs work on all items outside of gems, mats, recipes, and dyes, which will cost you an additional 15 percent transaction fee. Blizzard will be cashing in on this situation very, very quickly, this in stark contrast to how eBay cashed in on Diablo II and 3rd party unofficial transactions.

Let us know if you plan on picking anything up right here at the start of this virtual, and yet real, economy!

While in past versions of Diablo, players were able to hack the game all they wanted, just so long as they were playing single-player offline, here in Diablo III there’s no such leniency. Blizzard has announced that they’ve already banned or suspended the accounts of thousands of players “for cheating and/or using botting or hacking programs while playing.” Creating a bot, for those of you that do not know, essentially means having your computer play for you – that’s just not fair, right?

“In addition to undermining the spirit of fair play that’s essential to everyone’s enjoyment of the game, botting, hacking, and other such exploitive behavior can contribute to stability and performance issues with the Battle.net service. As always, maintaining a stable, safe, and fun online-gaming experience for legitimate players is a top priority for us, and we’ll be continuing to keep watch on Battle.net and take action as needed.” – Blizzard Entertainment

So beware all you non-traditional players out there, Blizzard isn’t going to have it! No duped SOJs, no massively unbalanced sets of cracked boots, and certainly no in-town kills. This isn’t World of Warcraft in South Park, after all. Stay tuned to see how this all plays out as Diablo III’s universe of online players continues to grow!

[via Blizzard]

This update will allow you to add cash to your Battle.NET balance which will then allow you to exchange that balance for in-house funds which in turn will allow you to purchase items for your characters to use inside the game. Battle.NET have updated their news feed with an alert that reads as follows:

“While we understand that this creates an extra step for players during the login process, we believe this added layer of account protection will help foster a safer auction house environment for all of our players.” – Battle.NET

This update will have separate sections which include hardcore-only auctions, auctions for gold-only (as we’ve seen already), and normal real-money auctions. We’ll be following this ecosystem closely to see what real cash money does to the world of Diablo this time around. Stay tuned!

Apple’s extremely popular MacBook Air and Pro line has received an overhaul just as expected. With faster quad-core i7 Ivy Bridge processors, improved graphics, 512GB Solid State Drive options and more. They even kept the optical drive for the Pro models — while making it thinner and lighter at the same time. All the details on their new models are provided from the timeline below.

One thing that caught our eye was the apps or programs they had on screen with the new MBP. For starters we saw Final Cut Pro and AutoCAD which are nothing new, but Apple showed off Diablo III running on their new MBP and its NVIDIA-powered graphics. If you didn’t think Apple was going to push harder in the gaming aspects you might want to think again. What’s even better is these are shipping TODAY. Yup, just as we suggested when the Apple store went down, new products are available now. Don’t forget to follow along at our liveblog!

The set of updates Blizzard has announced this week are not so much scheduled as they are “in the works”, with developers behind the scenes being given the order to create future patches with yet-unspoken deadlines in mind. Blizzard is not only letting players know that these changes are being done to not only balance out gameplay far better than Diablo II ever did (or does, since some still play it), but to encourage a variety of character class builds as well.

Blizzard lets us know that an impressive range of characters have already been built:

since Diablo III’s release:
• On average players have created 3 characters each
• 80% of characters are between levels 1 and 30
• 1.9% of characters have unlocked Inferno difficulty
• 54% of Hardcore players chose a female character
• The majority of Hardcore deaths (35%) occur in Act I Normal
• The most common level 60 build in the game is only used by 0.7% of level 60 characters of that class (not including Passive diversity)
• The most used runes for each class at level 60 are Barbarian: Best Served Cold, Demon Hunter: Lingering Fog, Wizard: Mirror Skin, Monk: Peaceful Repose, Witch Doctor: Numbing Dart

Blizzard currently has a patch in the works (under the version number 1.0.1) which will be “mainly aimed at addressing service issues” and has been in the works since the game’s launch. For those of you just joining us here on SlashGear, please feel free to check out our first of several reviews of the game and head to the timeline below to see our full Diablo III coverage in brief!

This game has certainly had its share of “fix” patches already, with millions upon millions of players signing on in the first week. Today’s update includes Blizzard being vigilant about keeping up with the bugs that roam through the codes of the game, popping up here and there as the game is explored in full. This update also noted that one of the biggest complains hardcore players have had thus far is the fact that some low-level Legendary items are just as powerful as high-level Magic (blue) items. The fix for this will come in the PvP patch as well.

“Comparing an ilvl 63 blue to an ilvl 60 Legendary will hopefully make a bit more sense afterward. In addition, we’re planning to just straight-out buff Legendary items in a future patch, likely the PvP patch (1.1). These buffs will not be retroactive, and so they’ll only apply to new Legendary items found after the patch. In the long term, we’re looking at simply expanding the affix diversity and unique bonuses of Legendary items, and we’ll be able to share more details after the PvP patch.” – Blizzard Entertainment

The PvP patch will be number v1.1. This is not the next patch that will be released – instead you’ll see at least one more in v1.0.3 with some changes to gems as well as Blacksmith costs so that he and they will be more equitable to your character as your character reaches level 60. Not point in having a puny Blacksmith if you’re a monster with monstrous needs.

The patch that will be allowing Player Verses Player combat will also be fixing a series of bugs, but more importantly will have “a number of game changes unrelated to PvP” as Blizzard notes. Blizzard also lets it be known that they’ll be opening up a PTR before the release of the PvP patch to the general public where you will “enjoy mercilessly slaughtering one another in the PvP arena.” So sayeth Blizzard with great glee.

Have a peek at our Diablo III timeline below, and don’t forget to check in on our ever-expanding review of the game as well!

[via Blizzard Entertainment]

The game Diablo III is an extremely scalable one made to work not just on the most powerful gaming towers, but your slightly less powerful laptops as well. Blizzard has been relatively good about keeping their online games able to both tend to those players who wish to visit the game every once in a while without too many frills on their mid-tier notebooks as well as those players with the massive mammoth machines they’ve made themselves – packed with detail. We on the other hand have been checking the game out on both an Alienware M17x gaming notebook and a 2011 MacBook Pro 15-inch notebook with Core i7 processor aboard – both having shown the game to be played with ease.

Starting our journey with the Monk class, we opted for the first of two available genders: Male, and were on our way. Immediately a new user understands that they’re in a birds-eye-view of a dark and foreboding world where they must attack their gruesome enemies or be destroyed right off the bat. Less than 30 seconds into the game and you’ve got little slimy beings crawling towards your character – and they’re ready to kill. These first few enemies are the tiniest of the game, of course, able to be beaten quickly so you can learn the basics of the game with ease.

Once you find your way down a winding path, you come upon an encampment by the name of New Tristram – a place you’ll find later on reflects the tiny camp past games revolved around. Characters in this camp provide you with information on the perils they face, gradually letting you in on the idea that it’s not just for them you’ll be fighting, it’s for the whole world – or realm, if you wish to call it that. Darkness befalls you as you move toward boss beast bosses that would have your head.

Keep your allies close or get strong quickly, as this game does not allow you to run through it the way some do. You must gain experience and add skills to your arsenal as you collect newer and better gear to equip yourself with as well. You’ll find that this environment is cramped in some places such as caves, and massive in others – holes in the earth spewing forth skeletons and leading down to hell and cathedrals filled with venomous green light.

Without a doubt, this is a game you can very easily get lost in for hours on end. Keep a clock close unless you want to get trapped.

Stick with us here on SlashGear as we continue our adventure into the pits of who knows what here in the third and most grand installment in the Diablo saga with Blizzard Entertainment. Also explore our Diablo III portal and timeline below to get all the info you could possibly desire!

The Real Money Auction House for Diablo III is sure to be launched some time in the future, but for now it appears that Blizzard has decided to hold off until they are completely confident it’ll work out for the best. This hold has happened two times before now for the game in its first week of being up for playing and is currently not set to be released with a solid date. You’ll have to do your item finding the old fashioned way, folks, sorry about that.

“In light of the post-launch obstacles we’ve encountered, we have made the decision to move the launch of the real-money auction house beyond the previously estimated May time frame. As we mentioned in our original announcement, our goal has always been to ensure everyone has the smoothest experience possible when the real-money auction house launches, and we need a bit more time to iron out the existing general stability and gameplay issues before that feature goes live. While we don’t have a new launch date to share just yet, we’ll have more information soon.” – Blizzard Entertainment

As for the fixes to the Monk class, you’ll find a patch waiting for you the next time you attempt to sign on with the following bits changed after you’ve updated:

Active Skills
Fists of Thunder
– Skill Rune – Quickening
Fixed an issue that was causing spirit regeneration to incorrectly trigger off critical hits from other sources, such as Sweeping Wind

Mantra of Healing
• Mantra of Healing will now correctly provide only two times the base healing effect for the first 3 seconds after activation, down from four times the base healing effect (tooltip will still show the old value)
– Skill Rune – Boon of Protection
A maximum absorption amount has been set to 1000 Life. This skill will be redesigned in an upcoming patch

Have a peek at our timeline below to get all your Diablo III news as it pops up, and get prepared for our full review coming soon!

With the number of people who picked up Diablo III with the Annual Pass, the number of purchases of the game goes up to 4.7 million in opening week. By the end of the week a massive 6.3 million players certainly must have taken its toll on Battle.NET’s servers, and though they should have been used to such numbers as a result of running World of Warcraft for several years now non-stop, having such a pummeling where before there was none certainly had a real effect on gameplay.

Have a peek at our timeline of Diablo III stories below and let us know how you’re doing in the game. Having played the game for about a week ourselves now as well, our review will soon unfold! Stay tuned to SlashGear for the full lowdown on one of the most massively anticipated video games in history!

[via The Loop]

This in-game online auction house is set to have users inserting real cash with credit cards and PayPal for which they receive currency which essentially work like game tokens at an arcade. This currency lives inside the auction house only and is not carried in-game by characters so as to keep the whole system as controlled as humanly possible. This system was created in reaction to player requests during Diablo II that the system of trading items back and forth between players be streamlined.

Have a look at what underground “Greatest Paladin in the World” gamer Athene has to say about the Real-Money Auction House to gain a greater understanding of what’s going on here – NSFW for a couple of swear words, btw:

Players from the age of Diablo II will remember hacks, duplication techniques, and evil in many forms when it came to trading items between players. In Diablo III no such evil shall exist, or so Blizzard hopes. The success of the Real-Money Auction House will rely heavily on how hardcore the players of the game become, of course. If Diablo II is any indication, Blizzard can expect playing and trading straight through the next 15 years when they release another installment – Diablo IV on the way!

This down time comes soon after not only emergency restarts this morning, but more than one glitch causing necessary patches to be sent out here in the first week after Diablo III has been launched. This does not bode well for the company that’s been working on the game now for 10+ years, players expressing frustration over the fact that they also cannot play offline single-player mode when online servers are down due to DRM requirements with this newest installment of the series as well.

Let us know if Battle.NET is down for you along with where you’re presently located in the USA, Europe, or Asia, and bear with us as we await word from Blizzard as well. Meanwhile feel free to head to our timeline below to see all the Diablo III action as it unfolds here in launch week!

In the apology launched today, Blizzard Entertainment speaks up via their Battle.NET community manager Bashlok who lets us know that they’re more than willing to help you as an individual as much as they can: “Please visit the Battle.net Support site or Support forums for the latest service-related updates or for help in troubleshooting any technical issues you may be having downloading, installing, or while playing the game.” That said, fixes are in the works for any outstanding issues though “As of late last night, specifically 11:50 PM PDT on May 15, all systems have been online and running relatively smoothly.”

Bashlok was very clear about how this all affects the one element we do not yet have for the Diablo III universe: the real-money auction house. The launch of this auction house was supposed to originally take place on the 22nd of May, this inside the first week of launching the full game, but this date h as now been pushed back with “further updates on that in the near future” Blizzard assures us.

Bashlok continued by noting their methods and future methods as well for error-bashing:

“We’d like to extend a very sincere thank you to everyone who joined the global Diablo III launch celebrations this week, as well as to everyone who was ready to jump into Sanctuary the moment the game went live.

To that end, we’d also like to say that we’ve been humbled by your enthusiasm — and we sincerely regret that your crusade to bring down the Lord of Terror was thwarted not by mobs of demons, but by mortal infrastructure. As many of you are aware, technical issues occurring within hours after the game’s launch led to players experiencing error messages and difficulty logging in. These issues cropped up again last night for the Americas and Europe servers. Despite very aggressive projections, our preparations for the launch of the game did not go far enough. …

Aside from the tremendous number of players simultaneously logging in to the game, one of the launch-day service issues was linked to the achievement system. Some players began to notice early on that achievements were either not being earned properly, or not being saved between multiple logins. We’re investigating this issue and will provide a specific update as soon as possible. …

Thank you again for your patience while we reinforce the gates of Sanctuary and further strengthen it for your onslaught.

Respectfully,
Blizzard Entertainment”

Join us this week as we continue to fight the forces of evil by mentioning your handle below – SlashGear will be bashing the minions of evil all weekend long and into the future as well, let’s team up!

This server status page includes Battle.NET servers for Diablo III across the whole earth and currently divides sectors up into the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Whenever there’s a giant outage, you can count on SlashGear to give you the whole 411 on the situation, but this Battle.NET dedicated Server Status page is always going to be your most accurate source for how up or down Battle.NET currently is. This site is up here on the second full day that Diablo III is live and we’re expecting it to remain active throughout the lifetime of the game as it’s played online.

This server status page works with Battle.NET’s full range of support pages including the newest couple of Diablo III helpers: Diablo III Common Errors as well as Diablo III Information and Known Issues. Check these pages whenever you get an error or have trouble of any kind and find out what’ll be best for you to get back into the game as fast as possible.

Have a peek at our Diablo III timeline below as well, and get online now – the game is live!

What is known is what glitch actually set this whole firestorm off. The most innocuous of things, a trade, a pushing of items is to blame. To make the error happen for yourself, and we do not recommend this if you’re still able to play online at the moment, is to create a Demon Hunter and give a Templar follower a shield. Simple as that.

Once you do that strangely common set of actions, you’ll be booted from the Battle.NET servers and will not be able to log back on until Blizzard sends out a software fix. This sad news is also popping up as Error 3006, the saddest of messages a Diablo fan can get after waiting more than 10 years since the last installment of the Diablo online RPG series. Now we must wait – oh the pain!

UPDATE: Servers are offline for the time being – hopefully not for long!

“Starting at approximately 2:15 p.m. PDT, we will be bringing Diablo III servers in the Americas offline for urgent maintenance to address several issues that are impacting the game. We anticipate that maintenance will last for about an hour and that servers will be available at approximately 3:30 p.m. PDT. We will provide further updates as they are necessary. Thank you for your patience.” – Blizzard Forums

While it’s not extremely fair to compare a massive PC role-playing game release like Diablo III to a third-person shooter like Max Payne 3, you’d have to be living under a rock not to have seen the media blast-out between these two beasts over the past few weeks. What we’re seeing here is Rockstar Games going up against Blizzard Entertainment, creators of the rest of the massively popular Diablo series and the most popular MMORPG of all time, World of Warcraft.

Pre-order totals for the Xbox 360 version of Max Payne 3 came in at 158,551 new customers while the PlayStation 3 version brought in 123,046 players of its own. Combined, 281,597 Max Payne 3 players don’t have anything on the 823,992 Diablo III pre-order players taking on the forces of evil today. If you’re in either camp, you’re likely not going to be reading this any way you look at it, as online and offline games are burning up consoles and gaming PCs starting earlier today across the nation and the planet.

Happy gaming, folks, and stay tuned for release numbers which should be racked up by either production group by the end of the week. Expect the best!

Yoshichan managed to power through the game, posting on NeoGaf once he had finished with his final stats: “Frenzy baba with lots and lots of mobility and defensive skills – 415 dps unbuffed, ~700 dps buffed.” Some posters in the thread take this to be a sign of the game’s length, but the reality is that with four difficulty modes, five classes, and randomly generated epic items with the Real Money Auction House in tow, Blizzard has designed it to be played for a long time to come.

So, what is he going to be doing next? Playing through the game again, this time in Nightmare mode. That increases the difficulty of the game, with enemies dishing out additional damage and some spells not being as effective. After that is Hardcore mode, the trickiest of all. When your character dies in that mode, it really is game over: all progress and items are lost, and you’ll have to start over from the beginning of the game.

UPDATE: Looks like no one can speed run like the Koreans. MMOSite reports that several players have taken down the final boss in around seven hours, throwing up the screenshots to prove it too.

[via EuroGamer]

1. Purchase the game right now!

Head to Blizzard Entertainment’s portal through Blizzard.net – this is the place where you’ll be purchasing the game and where the servers are hosted as well. The servers are where you’ll be playing the game online with all your good buddies for the next several months straight. Battle.net’s Diablo III portal will have you getting signed up for the server and picking up the first download as well.

2. Install the game!

You can install the game right this second. Diablo III’s doors don’t open until midnight, but you can download and install right this second. You’ll be able to log in starting at 12:01 PST – be there! All you’ll need to install this game is Windows XP or newer or Mac OS X 10.6.8 or higher – you’ll probably want some graphics power behind it, of course, but you’ll probably be good with at least a basically well put together machine.

3. Watch the Opening Cinematic as well as the Black Soulstone Cinematic!

You’ve got to take a peek at the storyline for this magic beast, starting first with the opening cinematic, Deckard Cain and all!

The Black Soulstone Cinematic shows what you’ll be after before you take your journey too seriously. This soulstone was an integral part of Diablo II – or a lighter version of it was, at least. Don’t get too disturbed:

4. Learn about Runestones

De-mistify yourself with a read about the now-broken Runestone System – this and several other elements have been taken out of the final Diablo III gameplay system, so make sure you’re updated on the latest goings-on through the official site and only the newest updates!

5. Learn about the real-money market

This next-level market for trading and purchasing items will be a game-changer without a doubt. You’ll want to know what’ll be sucking up all your extra cash for the next few years before you’re caught off guard. This full-range marketplace will have you working with real money and in-game gold as well.

6. See our pre-release demo

A few weekends ago the folks at Battle.net released a stress-test for their servers which included users ability to get up to level 13 and play a relatively full-functioning version of the game. travel with us with all the characters you’re about to love (or have a really bad taste in your mouth from.) Pick a Monk!

7. Get your schedule cleared

This game will be exploding with both regular and Hardcore modes for players right out of the gate. You’ll likely be playing for weeks or even months before you reach level 60 (and 99 once the first expansion comes out, of course), and Hardcore will be even tougher still. Blizzard have been plain about their making this game much more difficult than the previous versions of the game that have been out, so don’t expect a pleasure cruise!

8. Pack up the provisions

Get lots of soda pop and chips, and don’t forget to get your local pizza place on speed dial. Don’t forget to tip well, as you’ll likely be ordering more than one pizza this week, and the next week, and the week after that.

9. Stack up your Skills now

Blizzard have released a Skill Calculator for those of you hyper-obsessed with getting your character right the first time around. You’ve got a limited set of skills each time you move forward with a character, and once they’re gone, they’re gone!

10. Stay tuned to SlashGear for more info throughout the launch!

We’ll be online and kicking butt for weeks right along with you! Let us know your contact information in-game below and we’ll fight the forces of evil together! Don’t forget to trade us some Stone of Jordan rings while you’re at it!

It’s not the first time Blizzard has done this for one of its game: Starcraft II also saw a Starter Edition. As for Diablo III, you’ll be able to grab the Starter Edition if you’ve been given a Guest Pass (available in the retail editions of the game). It’ll be an exclusive for those with a Guest Pass, and after 30 days it’ll be made available for everyone else. The level cap is set at 13, and you’ll only be able to interact with those also playing the Starter Edition.

Diablo III is released tomorrow across the globe, with the servers due to go live at 00:01 CEST in Europe, and 00:01 PDT in America. The games will be installable from 17:01 local time if you pre-ordered the game digitally, otherwise you’ll have to wait on a retail copy. The game so far has seen a massive amount of pre-orders, with the Collector’s Edition selling out from numerous retailers, so we hope you have your copy ready to go.

[via Kotaku]

This real-cash auction house will be giving Blizzard Entertainment “up to” a 15 percent cut of all sales between users, Battle.net (the servers for the game) transferring money in and out then of your PayPal account (or other similar online money services.) Additional fees may apply then as well from PayPal. These fees then, ironically enough, can be used by you to purchase Blizzard products online if you like – a World of Warcraft subscription, for example. So when it comes down to it, Blizzard doesn’t charge you anything, just so long as they get to keep the money.

There are three real-money auction houses you’ll be able to access, The Americas, Europe, and Asia, with the first two working in regional money depending on where you live, the third (Asia) not having a real-money auction house at launch. Asia will have a real-money auction house launch at a time not yet announced by Blizzard, but they have assured us that it is in the future. Users across each of these regions will be able to work with a Battle.Net authenticator as well, this coming in the form of a small keychain device, dial-in authentication (in the USA online) and mobile authentication via a Battle.net application set to be updated for this release soon.

Buying and selling will be extremely similar to what you may have experience on eBay, with you listing an item for auction with an optional time limit and reserve bid. Cash will be sent to you automatically once an auction is over, however, rather than having to track down the bidder each time an auction has completed as it is in real life.

Sound alright to you thus far? We’ll see how it all pans out later this month!

[via Battle.net]

We’ve got three different levels of gamer here, each of them having played the Diablo III beta test this past weekend to help Blizzard test out their servers (and of course to get a head start on gaming prowess for the real hardcore release on the 15th of this month) First we’ve got Millie Wihlansen, a 20 year old student from upper Minnesota, USA. Next we’ve got Andy Gold, a 25 year old from Connecticut who works in the food service industry. Finally we’ve got Ray Carpenter, 50 years old and living in Florida. The names here have been tweaked slightly to protect each of the interviewees identities, and the locations have been made a bit more general, relegated to states so you get an alright idea of where they live without being able to stalk them in the night!

How did you your first experience this weekend with Diablo III? Was it enjoyable as you expected?

Millie: “I really expected pretty much what I got. It was like Diablo II but with better graphics and a lot more weird monsters than last time. I really liked the ability to choose male or female on each of the character classes for sure – and the gameplay was surprisingly smooth for a beta test so I think this release will actually happen by the end of the month, hopefully.”

Andy: “I can’t believe how similar it is to Diablo II. It’s really going to grab a bunch of people who liked to play that game and push them back into the feeling they had when they were playing it back in highschool, or whenever they were playing it. I’m going to need to set limits for myself or it’ll be flunking my sophomore year all over again.”

Ray: “It’s certainly a great progression here from Diablo I to II to III. It’s the same enjoyable set of dynamics that made the game great in the beginning tied with new surprises like the fat demons that explode into worms – same with the creatures that crawl out of the environment. Great expansion with new elements that are made to surprise gamers used to the Diablo universe.”

Do you expect Blizzard to have any more delays before the release of the game?

Millie: “Oh my god, if there are any more delays I’m going to flip out.”

Andy: “I can’t imagine they have anything else to prepare at this point.”

Ray: “If you’d have asked me before this weekend, I’d have said that if there were any more delays, I’d skip the game entirely. The beta test though made me fall in love with the game again.”

What character class do you expect to be using?

Millie: “I’ll definitely be a sorcerer or a demon hunter – I’m all about the casting of spells and traps from far off instead of getting down and dirty with a barbarian.”

Andy: “Barbarian. There’s no other class. Ever.”

Ray: “I’m finding myself drawn to the Monk class. I feel like the other characters are progressions of the past choices we’ve had but the Monk takes what the Paladin had in Diablo II and makes it much more interesting. And I’m loving the fact that each character has its own version of Mana, by the way – Barbarians should never have had Mana in the first place.”

Will you be playing single player mode or cooperative?

Millie: “Both of course, Diablo is all about both. I’ll probably see if my friends are going for characters that work with mine at the start and eventually I’ll join up with them. We’ll see.”

Andy: “I like to go cooperative – I did like in Diablo II, but here I’ll also want to go solo once I’m leveled up a bit so I can get the uniques and such. I need to get a SoJ too, I haven’t heard if they actually exist in D3, but I gotta find one!”

Ray: “In the past I’ve gone solo once through the game then joined other players for second runs and so forth. I expect to do the same here.”

Do you expect you’ll pay real cash in the Marketplace element in the game?

Millie: “I don’t know. I get pretty addicted so probably yes!”

Andy: “Again I really need to limit myself from playing too much, so I’ll probably have to stave off paying real money for items. No promises though.”

Ray: “I really doubt it. I can’t see myself paying actual cash for digital items. I’ve already purchased the game, I shouldn’t have to purchase items inside the game.”

We’ll see if we can keep in contact with these three through the release of the game as well to see how they’re doing – meanwhile feel free to answer the same questions yourself below! Are you pumped up for the release of Diablo III in the middle of May? We sure are!