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We reserve the right to disclose your personal information as required by law or in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing such information is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against you if you are violating the Terms of Service or Use Agreements for a Blizzard site or product, or may be causing injury to or interference (intentionally or unintentionally) with Blizzard's rights or property, other users of a Blizzard site or product, or anyone else who could be harmed by your activities.

They basically say if the police come, they'll have no problem giving up your information. I guess that is a problem for some people, but so far it doesn't bother me enough to make me stop playing.

After discovering that the available World of Warcraft mice were nothing more than regular two-button mice decorated with orcs, dwarves, and Night elves

Yeah, two-buttons and full of dwarves. But only if two means fifteen, of course.

No, the 11.5 million number is accurate as at least up to 23Dec2008:

From: http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/081121.html

World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition

World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licenseesâ(TM) territories are defined along the same rules.

Yeah. I do believe it is fine to borrow from yourself (especially when the ideas are good). They've certainly been doing that, but I have the feeling a little *too* much is going to be bad for the game. Many of the skills and even the classes are reminiscent of Warcraft and previous versions of Diablo (as you mentioned).

For example, the Barbarian has a skill called "Ground Stomp" does the exact same thing that "War stomp" does in Warcraft III. And once again, the "Seismic Slam" ability is identical to the Tauren Chieftan's "Shock wave" ability... See what they did there? Seismic... shock wave.. har har... :-)

Yes, the Hellfire expansion has a Monk class. As much as I've been a Blizz fan over the years, I actually never owned Hellfire. I wonder if there are any similarities?

In all honesty, I'm sure I'll still like the game even if they borrow HEAVILY from the past. I know it's tough, but I'm just amazed that Blizzard's talent would choose to recycle so much instead of coming up with fresh material in its place. Based on their track record though, I can only assume they know what they are doing. :-)

You bring up two interesting points:

- WoW's graphics look dramatically out-of-date (after all, the game was released in 2004, with comparatively minor updates done over the years, and the polygon counts are simply too low)
- zones appear to be completely unable to handle a load of, say, more than ~40 players actively engaged in close-quarters PvP combat (witness the 'Wintergrasp' zone)

  That said, it is unlikely (in my opinion) that the lag you experience in WoW when there are many players in a zone has much to do with the graphics engine, and probably has much more to do with Blizzard's "backend". From what I have personally experienced as a WoW player (and as an experienced software developer), I suspect that their database server isn't able to keep up with the massive number of queries/inserts/deletes that are required during active PvP. This doesn't necessarily point to a problem with the DB engine itself -- it usually arises because of poor database layout (there is a certain "art" to database design, balancing normalization vs. redundancy to reduce query frequencies, setting up indices, and so forth), poor SQL (it never ceases to amaze me the kind of queries that some people write), and poor overall use of the system (meaning, the server is simply processing so much information that it gets bogged down). I think that this is a fundamental issue with the WoW server/backend which has existed in the game from its inception, but which had been cleverly hidden in most regular play scenarios (e.g., generally by imposing a 40-man cap in the instanced dungeons/battlegrounds/etc.).

Given my conjecturing, I didn't find it at all surprising that Blizzard has a job open specifically focused on "performance implications of database architecture choices". But of course, this is all an opinion & speculation, so who really knows.

They may well be doing just that.

If P2P multiplayer has taught me anything over the last few years it's that NAT traversal is by no way or means a settled issue in networking. Time and time again, on multiple system, console and PC, I have seen P2P games fail to connect, had connections flake out and generally problems all round.

All this no matter how I configure my router, PC, PS3 or Xbox. Port forwarding, UPnP, QoS, Custom services, DMZs, fixed IPs, DHCP, IP Passthrough. You name it, I've tried it. And every individual game seems to want either new ports forwarded, or else ports 80 and 443 all to itself.

The only reliable method I have found for guaranteed flawless P2P online play is PPPoE, and there is no way in all seven hells that I am going back to having a windows box exposed to the elements like that again. I'm reluctant to even put the PS3 out there like that. Besides, do most ISPs even support PPPoE?

P2P online play has been the way PC RTS games have gone over the last few years. I doubt Starcraft 3 will the exception. What I suspect is that, since their last serverless multiplayer game was Warcraft 3, Blizzard initially went with a P2P based multiplayer solution, and now have had to delay the release when they finally realized what a monstrosity they had unleashed upon themselves. (Check out this NAT FAQ for the game which even gives the usual pawn off to portforward.com) Can you imagine the damage to Blizzard's reputation when millions of WoW-heads turned on their latest title only to have it completely fail to even start and online game?

My money is on NAT, and Blizzards inexperience with it as the root cause of this delay. If this is the case, I suspect that Battle.net may even go to some kind of client server model. NAT has become a problem as people have moved behind Broadband Routers and Gateways, instead of having modems directly hooked to their main rig. I could be wrong, but given Blizzard's sheer size it would be folly for them to leave their users having in the wind on the NAT traversal issue.

There is major error in the article title, summary, and even very nearly every article out there on the net. To demonstrate, let's go to the actual source of the information, the Blizzard press release.

The error is this: the movie is not a World of Warcraft movie. The movie is a Warcraft movie. It's a movie set in the Warcraft universe, not one based on the World of Warcraft game. You're right, out of necessity WoW is fairly static - that's how it is that you have content that's consumed again and again by various and even the same players. However the Warcraft universe is not static.

Especially if you play through the Warcraft III original and expansion games, you'll discover that Blizzard actually has a real talent for telling a story. They even go so far as to kill or dramatically change major characters. Watch the progression of Arthas from human paladin to undead lieutenant to rogue undead eventually to becoming the Lich King. See how they killed Grom Helscream in an epic battle, or how they killed Sylvanas Windrunner and brought her back as Lady Sylvanas, queen of the rogue undead.

Blizzard has an extremely rich lore in the Warcraft universe, and this is fertile ground for a movie or even a series of movies. They've already demonstrated their cinematic prowess and story writing abilities in the in-game and pre-rendered cutscenes in Warcraft III and Diablo II. There's no particular reason to think they would do worse than that with a bigger budget associated with a movie.

A movie based on World of Warcraft would be crap. A movie based on Warcraft though, that has real promise.

I loved the original starcraft game but didn't really like playing online because of the cheating and honestly it's more fun to play in a room full of people you know. I also don't support this designed obsolescence crap. I can still load up starcraft and play it with my friends and will still be able to in 10 years regardless of what happens to blizzard.

I just sent off an email to blizzard telling them I'm not buying their new version and I suggest you do the same. It only takes a minute and if everyone started doing something other than sitting on their asses things might change.

http://us.blizzard.com/support/webform.xml?locale=en_US

I see no way to email EA without having an account. Maybe someone else can find a method.

I don't think it's going to be World of Starcraft.

I agree, but it's a shame. The ominous proclamation "Nuclear launch detected" would have a lot more visceral impact if you knew you were standing around ground zero.

but I can't see them doing another fantasy genre MMO

Well, they do have the Diablo milieu, but I don't see much opportunity for innovation there. Besides, they can't even get the 3rd title in the normal isometric-scroller game series out the door.

In Warcraft, it consisted of sneaking a high level character to the opposing newbie area and then killing newbies as they spawned... for hours or until you were banned.

You must have never played Warcraft. Blizzard will not ban anyone for this. From their website:

We are unable to assist with the following issues: Actions that would typically be considered "dishonorable" are considered legitimate PvP tactics and will not be addressed by our Game Master (GM) staff. "Dishonorable" actions include, but are not limited to:

* Corpse camping.
* Tricking players into getting flagged for PvP (i.e. jumping in the middle of another player's area effect spell).
* Killing players well below your level.

The support contact is here: http://us.blizzard.com/support/webform.xml?locale=en_US
Let them know the disabling LAN support will only INCREASE the number of pirates of their game who will then turn to the "other" battle.nets.
I will be setting up an Auto Dial to spam (800) 953-SNOW with a pre-recorded message aswell, the more of you who can do this the better!

I would argue that blizzard does this quite well. I don't think this has to do with Vivendi, Blizzard's mother company, either.

Too late, Blizzard beat you to it.

"Oh my, we won't have to get adblock for wow! Outrage!"

Blizzard has also changed the tos for Battlenet, that they may in the future include in game advertising, and these adds will be selected an delivered while you play by "Massive" (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation)

(Check section 15 http://www.blizzard.com/us/legal/tou.html )

Blizzard is restructuring their system, so that in the future a player will be required to have one battlenet login for all Blizzard games (you register new games with your battlenet account, and can later redownload them if you lose the dvd)

So perhaps they don't want addons with advertisement since it might be a competition to their own, eh?

They have a native OS X installer: http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=21149&categoryId=2716&parentCategoryId=&pageNumber=1

I can't believe they have this list, and they don't include that fact that a Starcraft CD went in to Space on a Mission. You can read more about it on Blizzards Website. http://www.blizzard.com/us/starcraft/sis/

Blizzard have just announced their system, it is purely cosmetic changes to your character's appearance - gender, face, hair and skin color, hairstyle - combined with the paid name change service already available. No items, not even fluff. Certainly nothing that has any in-game effect on your character's abilities.

http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?tag=CRCFAQ

It's just part of the mounting evidence that username/password combinations for banks is inherently flawed. "Somthing you know" can always easily be known by someone else. Bank security should (IMO) be also based on "something you have", like an ATM card.

If banks really wanted two-way authentication to work properly, they'd use a hardware device (USB-key) that had to be present in the machine to login to your account. The hardware device would be implemented in such a way to make it impossible to copy the functionality of it without physical access to it.

It is certainly do-able.

Software manufacturers have been using dongles of various types for years now. I've got a couple clients with software installed that requires a USB dongle to be plugged into their PC in order to run. Shouldn't be too hard to do something like that for your banking site.

Or how about the VPN keychain fob things? Folks have been using those RSA keychain fobs to secure VPN logins for ages... Even Blizzard is using them now. Why not use them to log in to your bank's website?

do people who play wow make up a small number of the population(on the internet) or people who play other games that distribute over bittorrent? There are a number of other services that have legitimat downloads that use bittorrent. I would say that Linux distros is probably the smallest use of bittorrent. So tell me how many people play World of Warcraft? 1 2 3 examples of bittorent use there is also vuse and I think bittorrent.com might even have some legal download thing now too(I can't browse p2p stuff at work to check) bittorrent might be used for file transfer but so is direct download. Bittorrent is just easier on the servers that distribute the software it allows for a large cloud download. This is just a new technology that is just now starting to catch on with other companies as a way to distribute things(legally). Can it be used for illegal downloading and yes that's probably the number one use at the moment, but with game developers and content providers looking for ways to send large files and high definition content over the internet there is not a better way to do it. To remove that would be hampering the buisness model of these companies. If you think that it should be banned I think your wrong because there are a number of people who rely on this technology for legitimat use and even if it was 1% of the use I would still say you shouldn't hurt thoughs that are using it legitimatly. These corperations are only going to hurt themselves by doing this they are the ones that need to be using legal content downloads and the best distribution method is going to be torrents.

Connecting piping to their mothers' basements would be horribly inefficient. You'd have to lure them out and consolidate them into a single location. Luckilly, we have this, this, and these among others.

Speaking of which... it's all , including game trailors.

While looking at your employment notices, I saw that you were looking for people for a next generation MMO (From your site : Software Engineer, Server - Next-Gen MMO http://www.blizzard.com/us/jobopp/mmo-software-engineer-server.html). It surprised me at first because Blizzard own such a great part of the MMO Market and I did not see the use of creating a new product when your first one is such a commercial success.

I know that this project has not been announced yet but I was wondering what was the logic behind that ? The only guess I have is that the new project is dramatically different and will appeal to an extremely different crowd.

But on the other hand, does it really ruin the game if someone magically goes from 1 to 70 in two weeks without working for it?

I certainly hope not, because if it does, Blizzard's own "Recruit a friend" program is really going to ruin your day. Participants get triple XP (up to level 60). My wife and I started new characters and have made it up to 52nd in under an hour per level. As an additional benefit, for every two levels the recruit gains, they're able to grant the recruiter a free level (as long as the target character is lower level than the granter, and under level 60) -- so my wife has granted 26 free levels to my alts.

http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/media/screenshots.xml

Skip the middleman. The first four are the "new" screenshots... which look exactly like the old screenshots. Which is to say... nothing has changed

Really... a slashdot story on Blizzard releasing another 4 screenshots? Will we get a story for every new screenshot they release or only in intervals of 4 or greater?

Crafty little site... who went to take some pictures and artworks from the official site, added his watermark on it, submitted a news item and got slashdotted. Bravissimo! It's grand to see Arthur from Ghouls'N Ghosts announcing Diablo III.

Crafty little site... who went to take some pictures and artworks from the official site, added his watermark on it, submitted a news item and got slashdotted. Bravissimo! It's grand to see Arthur from Ghouls'N Ghosts announcing Diablo III.

3. Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game's release.

Conflicts with #2.

How so? Games in a "finished state" can still receive patches with minor bug fixes and new levels/features. For example, take a look at some of the Diablo II patches http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=21358. I don't remember any major issues with the unpatched version, but some of the patches seem to add interesting new functionality. For sports games this may mean roster updates for x number of years after the release, though I doubt companies would really put much effort into that.

7. Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.

8. Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.

9. Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.

10. Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.

All fixed by using the ThePirateBay images backed up with the appropriate cracks and servers. The crackers crack the software so you have no hassle. Why pay fo it when you are treated ike a criminal anyway. Might as well live up to the ideal.

The whole point of the Gamer's Bill of Rights is so that you DON'T have to illegally download and crack a game to enjoy it without the negative effects of copy protection. It sounds like you'd rather break the law than shell out $50 for a game anyway. The reason you should pay for it is because it's being sold, not given away for free by the company.

No doubt Battle.net 2.0 will allow players to bind a Blizzard Authenticator to their accounts.

In the expansion only, Lord of Destruction.

I bet you can't wait for StarCraft II...

http://www.playthingofthegods.com/DianiusPetsGuide/GuardianFelhunter.jpg
http://www.blizzard.com/blizzcast/_images/episode1/zerg.jpg

Blizzard - do not let any artists work on multiple franchises! Kill off the Warcraft II style now - it's crap.

Some companies like having game play videos on the Internet. For example, Blizzard is very clear that not only are they are okay with videos from their games on sites like Vimeo and YouTube, but they encourage it: http://www.blizzard.com/us/legalfaq.html

And who are these game publishers that are so retarded they want gameplay videos taken down? It's free publicity! People who might have never heard of the game otherwise may end up making a purchase due to a cool gameplay video they saw.

Gameplay videos have already been released. Not an MMO. http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/media/index.xml#movies

Try making an account on http://www.blizzard.com/account and giving them your CD keys. It should have StarCraft and Brood War.

On a related notice, I'm really pissed I can't find my copies of SC and BW anymore.

Um, this merger spans more than just Blizzard, despite the new name - Vivendi Games (a subdivision of French publisher Vivendi) is merging with Activision and being renamed Vivendi-Blizzard. Vivendi itself will maintain a 52% majority stake in the new company. What you missed is just because they are adding the Blizzard brand to their name doesn't mean that is all there is from that side of the merger - Vivendi Games itself owns a number of non-Blizzard companies that did not get added to the name, such as Sierra and Massive.

from Sierra you get franchises like Leisure Suit Larry, Empire Earth, King's Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory.
from Dynamix (dead Sierra subsidiary, devs mostly moved to GarageGames): Tribes (and many old games - SkyFox, Stellar7, Red Baron anyone?)
from Massive: Ground Control, World in Conflict

The reason for adopting the Blizzard name probably has more to do with it being the Pixar in their lineup (like Disney using Disney-Pixar).

Technically, Blizzard has a couple of old platformers, too, one of which could be considered a franchise because it had a sequel - The Lost Vikings I and II; Blackthorne was the other platformer I remember from them, but I don't think they released any sequels for that. Before that they did ports to Amiga like Battle Chess 2 and Castles (and maybe to C64, but I never used them - there was an IGN article about them mostly starting as a porting house a few years ago). See their company profile - it has links to some of that info.

I just used the Mac installer to install the game on my MacBook Pro. I had the same problem, but found a fix for it. Try holding down the option key while clicking on the icon to load the game. This will bring up the D2 options program. Go through the "configure video" section, and select 640x480 (stretched) and/or 800x600 (stretched). This should allow you to run it in fullscreen. Also, make sure you have the latest patch (1.12). You can get it from here: http://ftp.blizzard.com/pub/diablo2/patches/Mac/D2%20Patcher%20112a%20(Carbon).zip

Thank you. Through that page I was led here:

http://eu.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=22619

and then here:

http://eu.blizzard.com/en/support/webform/legacy.html?locale=en_GB

But it gives a Tomcat error. Bummer :-/

Thank you. Through that page I was led here:

http://eu.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=22619

and then here:

http://eu.blizzard.com/en/support/webform/legacy.html?locale=en_GB

But it gives a Tomcat error. Bummer :-/

$6.50 in the US

Where is the form for Europe? In that link it sais that this contact form is for US only. They have a link for wow-europe.com but it leads to a Support website, not contact form for European customers.

Here you go:
http://eu.blizzard.com/support/splash.xml

Original gameplay video (thanks to tcpdump):
http://us.media.blizzard.com/1901200114/_video/gameplay/diablo3-gameplay-en-US.flv

Here's the address to write to and to let them know that there is demand: http://us.blizzard.com/support/webform-us.xml

It might be better to go to the blizzard forums with this. I'm pretty sure the WoW tech support people are allowed to ignore off topic emails (they can't just give up on the world .. . of warcraft.)

typo. first one: http://us.media.blizzard.com/1901200114/_video/teaser/diablo3-teaser-en-US.flv

http://us.media.blizzard.com/1901200114/_video/gteaser/diablo3-teaser-en-US.flv

http://us.media.blizzard.com/1901200114/_video/gameplay/diablo3-gameplay-en-US.flv

http://us.media.blizzard.com/1901200114/_video/gteaser/diablo3-teaser-en-US.flv

http://us.media.blizzard.com/1901200114/_video/gameplay/diablo3-gameplay-en-US.flv

Perhaps Blizzard and I can simplify our relationship and I can just hand them my soul. They seem to have a pretty good handle on it as it is.

I'd go for that when there will be a Linux port of the game. Here's the address to write to and to let them know that there is demand:
http://us.blizzard.com/support/webform-us.xml

Just think, if half of all /.ers wrote to them expressing interest in a Linux port, how much pressure that would be to deliver. Even a port compiled against Wine 1.0 would be great. Write to them and let them know that.

You goofy zealots try to make every topic into a forum for your rantings. Blizzard will not care about your petition.

Why don't you go ahead and buy the Windows version of the game, since we all know you dual-boot, no matter how much you will claim not to in order to keep your geek cred.

... The menus at http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/ are shown even if you don't hold down ALT.

Doesn't the Blizzard native OS X installer, also discussed here, work on MacIntels?

Oh, great job! Now he won't even have until Diablo III comes out anymore to enjoy what would have been left of his life!

Doesn't the Blizzard native OS X installer, also discussed here, work on MacIntels?

I've been considering using Diablo II to wean myself from a year long umbilical WoW connection and hadn't had a chance to try it yet.

Perhaps Blizzard and I can simplify our relationship and I can just hand them my soul. They seem to have a pretty good handle on it as it is.

I'd go for that when there will be a Linux port of the game. Here's the address to write to and to let them know that there is demand:
http://us.blizzard.com/support/webform-us.xml

Just think, if half of all /.ers wrote to them expressing interest in a Linux port, how much pressure that would be to deliver. Even a port compiled against Wine 1.0 would be great. Write to them and let them know that.

... much more here