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?

Yet, they aren’t happy with it. Blizzard states:

Inventory management and the systems that surround it are something we’re obviously interested in, but not something that can really be tuned until we have more of the item game fleshed out and tuned itself. It’s hard to know exactly the best way to handle inventory management when the items, types, pickup frequency, and removal frequency can’t really be measured with any real accuracy.

I hope this doesn’t mean we get to play item tetris – as it was in Diablo 2 with different items taking different number of slots.

At the same time, Blizzard obviously don’t want to copy WoW’s inventory system. Or, Warhammer Online’s system of different bags filtering different item types. They want to make us THINK about which items we put in the inventory.

For starters, a new character will be playable at Blizzcon – the Monk! According to pundits, he replaces the Paladin, so for all of you Hammerdin fans, try to find some love for the Monk.

The Monk’s skills are: Crippling Wave, Impenetrable Defense (bubble?), Exploding Palm, Seven-sided Strike, Way of the Hundred Fists. As usual, you can check these in action here.

You can check out gameplay video below:

Stay tuned for more Blizzcon coverage!

You may wonder what that has to do with you. Well, as the Starcraft 2 beta is the first beta to be integrated with the new Battle.net, you’ll probably need to to follow the same steps to get into a Diablo 3 beta.

Here’s the instructions for getting your Battle.net beta settings straight:

1. Sign up for a battle.net account
2. If you have a Battle.net account, login here.
3. You’ll see a link “Beta Profile Settings
4. Download an app that will upload your system specs
5. You’re done

Hopefully, if Blizzard manage to launch Starcraft in 2009, there’s hope that Diablo 3 release date will be in 2010!

My count of the rumors regarding the fourth race can be boiled down to two:

• Ranged character – the parallel is to the rogue in the Diablo I and the Amazon in Diablo 2
• Knight – similar to the Warrior in Diablo and the Paladin in Diablo 2

Believe it or not, there’s speculation that the Knight is out of the question for Diablo 3 and that Blizzard would like to introduce a truly unique character, like … a Vampire!

I’m betting my money on the ranged character, could be called Ranger or Hunter. A pet is NOT out of the question, though that could be my WoW Hunter talking!

You need Warcraft III in order to play it and the map is still in beta. However, I’m really amazed at the graphics – the world editor is indeed powerful enough to change the game completely. It does look like Diablo III.

Download Diablo 3 beta map

P.S. Maybe it was my bad luck with skill selection as a Wizard but even the first wave of zombies proved insurmountable for me!

However, Blizzard is known for its vague comments when it comes to monetization:

Are there any plans to monetize Battle.net 2.0 service? Mike Morhaime limited to answer: “I’m not ready to talk about that today”. Mike Morhaime confirmed that Battle.net 2.0 will be free to those who buy StarCraft 2 retail.

Of course, you need to remember that Starcraft 2 is coming out not in one but in THREE retails boxes (for a total of around $100). So even one measly box gets you into Battle.net 2.0 for life? I’ll take it.

Well, Diablo 3 takes center stage at this Blizzcon! The Barbarian is displayed prominently on the homepage (next to something green looking like a Starcraft II ghost).

OK, a few bullet points about Blizzcon 2009!

• Tickets will go on sale worldwide on Saturday, May 16 for $125 each
• Blizzcon 2009 will be held on August 21 and 22 in Anaheim, California
• You get a unique WoW (non-combat) pet – Grunty the murloc marine
• Global finals for the 2009 Warcraft III and WoW Arena will be held – finalists get top prize of $25,000 per player

If you’re not able to attend, there’s the poor man’s Blizzcon – live Directv coverage for just $39.95. You do the murloc marine pet, so if you need a green/blue blob around you at all times, make sure you give your hard-earned cash to Blizzard.

Bill Roper is the producer of the original Diablo and Diablo II and he thinks that Diablo is a Gothic fantasy. He thinks the CLOWNs at Blizzard have took the game over and have repainted the graphics in their favorite cartoony colors.

I think that one of the things that we always tried to get across was that Diablo was Gothic fantasy and I think there was just a need that was put in there from the visuals that I didn’t necessarily get. I got it from the architecture and to a degree from the character design but not the feeling of the world. I can’t say that I dislike it. I didn’t look at it and go, oh my God that’s horrible. But I looked at it and went, it’s not really… to me as a player it just didn’t really ring with Diablo.

Admittedly, it could be that Bill Roper is bitter about the dismal failure of the Hellgate: London project. Frankly, though, I agree with him – we need MORE blood and guts and dark horrors, not LESS.