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Blizzard Closes North Offices
An anonymous reader writes "GameSpot reports that Blizzard, the company responsible for StarCraft, Diablo, and most recently World of Warcraft, will be closing the offices of Blizzard North, the division of the company that traditionally housed Diablo series development. The article mentions that employees will either be offered severance or moved down to the Blizzard HQ to work on an unnamed project, and speculates that Diablo 3 could be the project. Is it just coincidence that Blizzard released the 1.11 patch for Diablo II on August 1st and closed the studio on the same day?"
Exactly. Some of the Diablo character classes might not be there in WOW but most are. Sorceress is now Mage, Assassin is now Rogue, Amazon is now Hunter, Barbarian is Warrior, etc.
And the game world - with regards to monsters, NPCs, quests, quest rewards, partying, etc - is clearly built on Diablo II. Heck, there are even items in WOW that are clear references to Diablo II, such as the Staff of Jordan, or the Cow King's Hide.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg