Jay Wilson: Throughout the history of patches on Diablo II, there were a lot of updates to runewords and they really powerful from when they were introduced. At one time or another though all of the different item types were the most powerful, like unique items were the best, or rare items at some point.

Our general approach for Diablo III is to make sure that every type of item has a place to be useful. For example, maybe we’ll have a legendary item, which is the new name for our unique items, be the best helm, whereas rares will have the most powerful chest armor, and so on. Having a spread like that will allow for a more varied itemization system we hope.

I think we’ll still be stuck collecting exotic components but time will tell if Diablo 3 will be like Diablo 2 item-wise.

I can’t believe 10+ million subscribers is now considered marginal for a MMO! For some perspective, LOTRO has about 250,000 and Warhammer online is seeing a decreasing 300,000 or so.

The other point is … how is WoW not appealing enough for everybody? It has purple (gay?) elves, orcs on motorcycles… it’s as cartoony as a Disney picture.

It looks like Activision-Blizzard is definitely pursuing a strategy of attracting the lowest common denominator and putting “niche” products like Diablo 3 on the backburner. Just 40 people are working on Diablo when the support team for WoW alone is something like 3000?

Blizzard have stated that TWO titles will be released in 2010. One of course, is Starcraft 2. Fair enough, it was announced a long time ago.

The other title due in 2010 is WoW Cataclysm. Blizzard needs to keep the money machine printing. I did freeze my account months ago and I suspect I’m not the only one.

Here’s the confirmation from Shacknews: “Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime has confirmed that just-revealed World of Warcraft expansion Cataclysm and StarCraft II are the two titles the company expects to hit in 2010″.

OK, let’s go over how runes worked in Diablo 2. There are 33 runes that drop from monsters. Note that some runes drop often while others drop extremely (e.g. Zod rune). Also, there are items with sockets that are able to take runes (or jewels). Some rune combinations (called runewords) create Runic Items, which are among the most powerful items in the game.

For example, socketing the runes Hel + Ohm + Um + Lo + Cham gives your axe or hammer a whole bunch of additional stats and it also adds the label “Doom”.

OK, so what are the changes to the runes in Diablo 3? Runes will still be used to CUSTOMIZE your character, however, runes no longer modify ITEMS. Instead they’ll be added to skills (each skill has a single rune slot).

Also, to make runes easier to use, rune names will be changed to reflect their effect, e.g. Rune of Multistriking. How does this affect gameplay?

For example, a Minor Multistrike Rune attached to the Skull of Flame will make projectile skip along the ground once , but higher quality Runes like the Major Multistrike Rune may raise the amount of bounces and the distance traveled by the projectile.

Jay Wilson, Diablo 3 Lead designer, expressed his strong desire to make each skill customizable while at the same time retaining the uniqueness of each class. In other words, he doesn’t want the Barbarian to be able to mimic the Wizard by adding certain runes to skills.

Get into the Diablo 3 beta!

You get an email the second Blizzard announce the Diablo 3 beta.

Now, prepare to be surprised by some of the reasoning behind this “news”. Diablo 3 release date has been a hot topic and we’ve all heard the usual Blizzard rhetoric that Diablo 3 will come out WHEN the game is ready.

First, some background: a guy who played Diablo 2 for years got a DOL rune and experimented with it until it crushed the game. He’s got an error message … a series of meaningless numbers. Or are they?

64 69 61 62 6c 6f 20 33 20 20 30 39 2f 30 39 2f 30 39.

So why is this significant in ANY way? OK, this is the geek part: 64 69 61 62 6c 6f 20 33 20 20 30 39 2f 30 39 2f 30 39 is hex for : Diablo 3 09/09/09. That means that if you translate the hexadecimal code, it gives you Diablo 3’s release date.

Now, the critical part. How likely is that Diablo 2 developers knew in advance when Diablo 3 will be released? NOT LIKELY. At the same time, if I were head of development at Blizzard and I was a bit of a numerology freak… I’d pick EXACTLY this date. Why?

Well, it’s pretty obvious. 09-09-09 represents 666 if you turn it upside down. The number of the beast! (cue the Iron Maiden song here)

Get into the Diablo 3 beta!

You get an email the second Blizzard announce the Diablo 3 beta.

Update: A new rumor puts the Diablo 3 release date on 09-09-09!

A recent rumor that Diablo 3 will be released BEFORE Starcraft 2 actually prompted Blizzard to officially address the issue of the release date.

Here’s the summary in short: Battle.net 2.0 will be released simultaneously with the release of Starcraft 2. The best guess for that is early 2009, with a Starcraft 2 beta coming out late in 2008.

So Diablo 3 will come out AFTER that … possibly by the end of 2009. An encouraging news will be if Blizzard have a playable “demo” at Blizzcon.

Update: Here’s the quote from Rob Pardo (Wired blog):

A lot of the way we develop is: We wanna make sure the game is really fun and the visual fidelity we want … we wanna make sure we have a small area that feels really done so we know what to build. So even though it looks really complete a lot of the content is just not there. We have a long ways to go to build each of the different acts in the game and put in all the quests and all the different monsters. We have a lot of development ahead of us before it will be something … It will definitely be out after StarCraft II.”

I hope this answers the last comment!

Below is the confirmed feature list (source: DIII):

* Excellent Ping
* Channels and Chat in-game
* Ladders and Rankings, secured against cheating.
* Extended stats, with possibility to see who D/C etc
* AMM-type Matchmaking
* Avatars, Images and Icons to represent yourself
* Diablo III Hardcore mode
* Friends/Ignore Lists with advanced management
* Clan Support
* Automated Tournaments

In addition, there’s plenty of rumors regarding an Achievements system, Accountability (to track cheaters and those who use hacks) and Voice Over IP in-game chat.

Get into the Diablo 3 beta!

You get an email the second Blizzard announce the Diablo 3 beta.

Blizzard adopted Havok 4 recently. So will we be seeing Diablo 3 running on Havok 4.0? Some of the advantages that I see are that:

1. Using an engine means they’ll complete Diablo 3 sooner (2007?)
2. Havok supports Mac OSX, so making Diablo 3 run on a Mac will be seamless
3. Havok supports PS3 so MAYBE we can see Diablo 3 on PS3.

The Diablo on Playstation stuff is perhaps premature BUT listen to this: Havok gets three times better performance from PS3 compared to a high-end PC. And why would Blizzard want an engine that does well on a console unless they plan to use it.

So we could be seeing Diablo 3 on Playstation as well. If we do, there’s a good chance Diablo 3 won’t be a MMO.

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