Blizzard Announces Diablo 3

stpk4 writes "After a week-long tease by Blizzard, Diablo 3 has just been announced in Paris. The splash screen has been updated at their homepage and The Escapist has the first write-up." While there aren't many details available yet, it is known that Deckard Cain returns to help our heroes yet again.

Comments

Not only splash screen

[zolf13]

... much more here

Re:Not only splash screen

[Gewalt]

OK, so we know there's gonna be a mac version... but... there's still one very important question. WILL I BE ABLE TO PLAY IT ON MY MACBOOK PRO? (cause if not... I'm gonna cry for weeks)

Re:Not only splash screen

[Dachannien]

All I see is fifty bazillion unnecessary Flash widgets, with a smidgen of text way at the bottom. They even apparently require Flash just to show a fancy capital "T".

Maybe that's the point. In Diablo III, you, the hapless adventurer, are given the Nerd's Gaming Rig of Total Righteousness (Unique Item), and must venture through the Gates of Hell to destroy Diablo's armies of pointless Flash widgets.

In the expansion, you essentially do the same thing, except now they're all Silverlight widgets, and you face off against a chair-throwing Steve Ballmer at the end.

Re:Not only splash screen

[TomHandy]

I can't imagine any possible reason why you wouldn't be able to play it on your MacBook Pro (even if it's a 1st gen one with the crippled X1600 GPU, it should still be able to handle it just fine.... Blizzard isn't exactly Crytek when it comes to system requirements).

Re:Not only splash screen

[Jesus_666]

Yeah, but Blizzard first put up the splash screen and then apparently forgot to upload the rest of the site for an hour or so. You got the splash screen followed by a 404.

Re:Not only splash screen

[IHateEverybody]

All I see is fifty bazillion unnecessary Flash widgets, with a smidgen of text way at the bottom. They even apparently require Flash just to show a fancy capital "T".

At least you got to see the bazillion unnecessary Flash widgets. The page appears to be slashdotted.

Re:Not only splash screen

[Anonymous Coward]

Gosh, that trailer didn't seem derivative of the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies at all.

Re:Not only splash screen

[rpillala]

This is why Bill Gates retired so he would have more time to model for mocap.

Re:Not only splash screen

[Kierthos]

It's not the slashdot effect. It started much earlier this morning when several hundred thousand WoW fans started reloading the page every three seconds in the vain hope that this splash page related to the WoW expansion "Wrath of the Lich King".

Re:Not only splash screen

[abstract daddy]

They have a 800 mb gameplay video that you can get using Blizzard Downloader, which uses Bittorrent. Too bad they forgot to seed the fucking thing! I'll just wait for Gametrailers to pick it up.

Re:Not only splash screen

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... because I'm sure you could do better while at the size Blizzard is. Bitch bitch bitch, but do you people do better? never.

Re:Not only splash screen

[abstract daddy]

Shit, we'd better inform all the game, book, film, music and art critics that they have to stop working unless they can do better.

Re:Not only splash screen

[Bohabo]

No, I can't do better. But I'm not taking people's money so that I can not do better. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Re:Not only splash screen

[Anonymous Coward]

You only get to say that when you've actually proven something.

Unless you want to remove all possible doubt that you are the single dumbest creature that ever has or will existed.

Which you obviously do.

You miserable failure.

Re:Not only splash screen

[Anonymous Coward]

You only get to say that when you've actually proven something.

He did.

Re:Not only splash screen

[Trespass]

Yeah... because I'm sure you could do better while at the size Blizzard is. Bitch bitch bitch, but do you people do better? never.

Not wasting your time playing shitty clickfests would be the ultimate way of doing better.

Other forms of payment

[MooseMuffin]

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.

Re:Other forms of payment

[dotancohen]

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.

Re:Other forms of payment

[Anonymous Coward]

Good for you. Do you want a cookie or something?

Re:Other forms of payment

[MooseMuffin]

I run WoW under wine on ubuntu. Works perfectly, and even plays nice with the compiz fusion desktop effects. I can run WoW on one desktop, and then spin the cube to another to answer IMs or whatever.

Re:Other forms of payment

[jfsimard79]

I just read that while playing WoW, so I understand.

Re:Other forms of payment

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not that dumb, obvious there will be a surge of emails demanding Linux and it will not be a steady demand.

Even John Carmack from remarks before regrets releasing to Linux, poor sales have tainted the Linux market and it might be 10 years before a true title is released again especially with the 'Games for Windows'.

The interest is not there from the Linux community and they constantly snuff their nose at PC Windows gamers even though they have told those who push the Linux agenda to be more gamer friendly.

Re:Other forms of payment

[Anonymous Coward]

all /.ers wrote...
I don't know, even if all the basement dwellers, that had never seen a real woman on their lives (moms and ugly computer science colleagues don't count), were raised to write to Blizzard, I don't think they would care.
Nobody wants to launch a game for Linux, they prefer to stay with the 90% of the OS market and Windows...

Re:Other forms of payment

[dotancohen]

Nobody wants to launch a game for Linux, they prefer to stay with the 90% of the OS market and Windows...

So let them compile against Wine 1.0.

Re:Other forms of payment

[dotancohen]

I run WoW under wine on ubuntu. Works perfectly, and even plays nice with the compiz fusion desktop effects. I can run WoW on one desktop, and then spin the cube to another to answer IMs or whatever.

But it might not work in the next release. If we don't write to the game developers and let them know that we want to use their products on linux - even if there currently is a workaround such as wine - then we will never have games written for the OS. And not having games is what keeps many people on Windows. A vicious cycle, and we need to break it.

Re:Other forms of payment

[dotancohen]

They're not that dumb, obvious there will be a surge of emails demanding Linux and it will not be a steady demand.

So wait two months before you write. But write.

Re:Other forms of payment

[Anonymous Coward]

luckily it is as simple as that

Re:Other forms of payment

[MMC Monster]

I guess that I'm in that "half of al /.ers" who never played any of the diablo games. *shrug*

Games are nice, but I can't believe half of all /.ers can agree any anything (besides reading /., apparently).

Re:Other forms of payment

[Anonymous Coward]

But I'm not interested in a linux port. I think linux is overrated and ridiculously over complex.

I'm sure there are others who don't care as well. Those of us with windows and mac computes don't care about you linux people.

Re:Other forms of payment

[maniac/dev/null]

I've heard they're releasing Diablo 3 for Mac on the same day as the Windows version. Maybe they're already using Cedega or something similar to help speed the porting process. If so, it would make sense that Diablo 3 would run fine under Wine/WineX.

A Mac port on release day is promising for anyone who would want to run it on Linux.

Re:Other forms of payment

[dotancohen]

luckily it is as simple as that

In most cases it is as simple as that. Not in all cases, but in most.

Re:Other forms of payment

[jlarocco]

Well shit, in that case I can just run Windows inside Qemu or VMWare and run all my apps that way. Why bother making any Linux software at all?

Using wine is a hack. It only works sometimes, in some cases, and chances are good that upgrading it will break things. It's not an excuse for not releasing a Linux version. If I wanted Windows, I would just go buy it.

Re:Other forms of payment

[Fancia]

Blizzard always releases every one of their games for Mac on the same day as the Windows versions; that goes back to long before Cedega existed. A Mac version of Diablo 3 doesn't mean anything to a potential Linux version, unfortunately.

Re:Other forms of payment

[Jellybob]

While not the perfect solution, Wine does get the job done, and can allow people to play games that they wouldn't otherwise be able to.

It only works sometimes, in some cases, and chances are good that upgrading it will break things.

Not if the developers have been working with the aim of not breaking under Wine. I think the OP was saying to distribute a known good version of Wine with the game, and run it that way, which would mean that there aren't any issue.

This has worked quite well to release Windows games for Mac OS, where they are built against a DirectX compatiability library, allowing companies to release games for both platforms at the same time.

Re:Other forms of payment

[shawnce]

Blizzard designs their games from the get-go to allow them to release a native Mac and native Windows version of the game on the same day. They have a long history of doing this.

In fact their Mac games sometimes leverage features of Mac OS X and the applications available to do interesting things beyond what you see on the Windows side.

Re:Other forms of payment

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Other forms of payment

[jlarocco]

Not if the developers have been working with the aim of not breaking under Wine. I think the OP was saying to distribute a known good version of Wine with the game, and run it that way, which would mean that there aren't any issue.

I didn't know WoW did that, but I admit it's better than hoping it works with whatever version of Wine happens to be installed.

In any case, if Blizzard wants my money this time around they can release a native Linux port.

Re:Other forms of payment

[dotancohen]

I guess that I'm in that "half of al /.ers" who never played any of the diablo games. *shrug*

Games are nice, but I can't believe half of all /.ers can agree any anything (besides reading /., apparently).

Even if you don't want to play games (and I don't), promoting the development of Linux software will be beneficial to you no matter what field you happen to be in. I personally need Solidworks to run on Linux. But there is no Solidworks, because large proprietary applications developers don't think that there is demand for Linux. Promoting anything, including games, will help.

Re:Other forms of payment

[dishpig]

Blizzard always releases every one of their games for Mac on the same day as the Windows versions

Apparently you weren't around for the first Diablo release.

Re:Other forms of payment

[srh2o]

Come on mods Why is this modded troll. The parent has concisely given the other side of the story with Blizzard.

Re:Other forms of payment

[Anonymous Coward]

Your forgetting something.... VMs cant do 3D... I've tryed that with WC3 and it fails miserably... works wonders under wine 1.1 though.

Re:Other forms of payment

[yammosk]

Blizzard always releases every one of their games for Mac on the same day as the Windows versions

Apparently you weren't around for the first Diablo release.

Or the second...

Re:Other forms of payment

[dotancohen]

Not if the developers have been working with the aim of not breaking under Wine.

Exactly, but they aren't going to do that if we don't ask. Write to them and let them know that they need to target Wine / Linux as well as whatever versions of Windows they write for.

Better yet, as another poster mentioned, wait a few weeks before writing to them. That way, we won't flood them all at once and then die down again.

Re:Other forms of payment

[dotancohen]

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.

Not only do I not dual-boot, but I don't even play games. I'm not a geek, I'm a computer user. Are you a mechanic because you drive a car?

I stress that we need to write to the gave devs because promoting Linux software in general, not just games, is good for Linux users. I personally need Solidworks to run on Linux. Right now I waste half my cpu cycles and memory running VirtualBox to use it. If you feel like writing to Solidworks instead of Blizzard, please be my guest, you will help me out a lot:
http://www.solidworks.com/pages/company/SolidWorksOfficeWorldwide.html (requires registration)

Re:Other forms of payment

[marco.antonio.costa]

Hey, here's what I wrote. I encourage everyone with a little interest in Linux and gaming to write them, even if you don't care too much for Diablo. Might start a trend. :-)

"Hi guys, I'm a long time Diablo player, purchasing all those games you released. Great work, I hate you, you made me flunk in college several times with D2:LOD particularly. ;-)

However, I no longer am a Windows user and I won't be able to play the upcoming Diablo 3 if it only comes out for Win and Mac. Soooooooooooo I figured I'd ask you to pleaaase make it available for Linux as well. Since you're releasing it for the Mac which is Unix based I reckon it won't be as impossible as once would be.

And hell, maybe if you even compromise not to a full port, but to make it work under Wine it'd be gigantic; Not to mention that'd make Blizzard look very cool for making such a pioneering move, which I think you guys more than deserve, as in my opinion you are the most kickass game developer around.

That's it! Now get back to work! :)

Best regards, Marco Antonio Costa"

What you think? Did I talk shit about the Mac and Unix-based thing, I'm not exactly an expert on that subject.

Re:Other forms of payment

[Jurily]

So what's keeping them away from Linux?

Re:Other forms of payment

[crashfrog]

then we will never have games written for the OS.

Maybe one of the reasons you'll never have games written for the OS is that you can't count on anything to work from one release to the next (like your example of games under WINE.)

Re:Other forms of payment

[Walter Carver]

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.

Re:Other forms of payment

[smkndrkn]

Quake 3 launched with a Linux version. I don't think it sold very well.

Re:Other forms of payment

[Anonymous Coward]

Blurge

Re:Other forms of payment

[chromatic]

Since you're releasing it for the Mac which is Unix based I reckon it won't be as impossible as once would be.

Very little of the interesting GUI and IO stuff in Mac OS X has anything to do with Unix. If the game uses OpenGL, that's a plus ... but input handling and sound will be very different on the Mac than it will be on a modern Unix-like machine (unless Blizzard uses some cross-platform portability libraries).

Re:Other forms of payment

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Or, they could just dual-boot or run the game on another computer. Write all of the letters you want, but there isn't nearly enough demand to make the port worthwhile financially.

Why? You're in a stubborn minority, apparently, but most of the Linux users I know also have some way to run Windows...and when the game comes out, they'll buy it and run it in Windows. They might appreciate a Linux port, yes, but it'd be a money-losing venture for Blizzard, guaranteed.

Re:Other forms of payment

[kiddygrinder]

Lack of market share, they actually had a linux client on the original wow alpha disc, but it never progressed from there.

Re:Other forms of payment

[nawcom]

Since from what it seems in the past, all the Blizzard games have worked wonderfully with wine. Most are on the top compatibility list (in fact i'm pretty sure it's all of them, not including the old dos games). Especially since their games aren't DirectX dependent (think Mac versions that are compiled with gcc and use OpenGL), they seem to hold quite well with the wine API.

Re:Other forms of payment

[grumbel]

Nothing, most/all(?) of their games work fine in Wine.

Re:Other forms of payment

[Mike610544]

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.)

Re:Other forms of payment

[Anonymous Coward]

I already send my e-mail.

Re:Other forms of payment

[dotancohen]

Even if, as chromatic mentioned, that you were wrong on the technical details, what you wrote was important. The devs at Blizzard know the technical details, so a small mistake on our part won't make a difference. But by showing interest in the Linux port, you very well may make a difference. I like how you remind them that they are innovators and that a linux port most certainly is innovation. Good job!

Re:Other forms of payment

[Hes Nikke]

The mac build of WoW is not based on Cider (the WINE+DX compatibility library package) , but one high profile game that IS based on Cider is Spore.

I was kinda surprised to find windows styles My Pictures folder inside of my (lower case m) Documents folder after i played with spore for a bit. Poking into the Spore Bundle, I found a Windows File system for the location of the Spore data. I was even able to drop the assets from the windows full version into this file system and add some parts! :D

Re:Other forms of payment

[Hes Nikke]

luckily it is as simple as that: Cedega. Almost game that runs on the Mac will run in Cedega just fine. They're both built on the same technology.

Re:Other forms of payment

[Hes Nikke]

Actually Diablo II shipped for Mac and Windows on the same day, but in different packaging. Oddly, while the Windows version shipped on a Windows only disc, the Mac version was hybrid. That means that the Mac version went gold AFTER the PC version, but still before it launched. Later Windows labeled boxes shipped with hybrid disks as well.

I was "The Apple Guy" at my local CompUSA when DII launched, I had my Hybrid (mac) copy of DII on the day DII launched.

Re:Other forms of payment

[Logiksan]

This is a very valid point. 'Linux' is little more than a kernel. There's a half dozen or so interfaces built on top of that, with a few different types of environments available. It's not a lack of demand that's keeping commercial games from being released on Linux OSes, it's the fact that it has to conform to a number of different platforms within the Linux umbrella. With the rising costs of game development, nobody wants to bother going through the trouble.

Re:Other forms of payment

[Anonymous Coward]

If we don't write to the game developers

Those game developers will silently drop your mail. "Oh boy, a 1% market share. I'm jumping at the opportunity here!"

Really, dual boot or wine. Stop this incessant nagging for linux support, it's getting old, boring and tedious.

Re:Other forms of payment

[dotancohen]

Really, dual boot or wine. Stop this incessant nagging for linux support, it's getting old, boring and tedious.

Dual boot: Pay $200 for another operating system.
Wine: does not work from version to version.

That's why I mention to ask them to compile against Wine 1.0 if they cannot provide native Linux support.

Re:Other forms of payment

[dotancohen]

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

Re:Other forms of payment

[DuckDodgers]

No, the reasons for a lack of commercial Linux games are quite different:

1. Linux desktop users make up a tremendously small portion of the home PC market. The development effort to port everything to Linux and support it is likely not to cover the added costs.
2. Many people run Linux at home to get good use of hardware that can't handle Microsoft XP or Vista. Most modern games wouldn't run on those machines even if they were ported to Linux.
3. A portion of the Linux user-base are free software advocates, so some are philosophically opposed to purchasing proprietary software.

That's why Linux ports of big games rarely happen.

On the other hand, compatibility from generation to generation of Linux applications is pretty solid. WINE is a notable exception because using a few hundred volunteers to reverse engineer a Microsoft API built by tens of thousands of paid developers is a big deal. I'm astonished WINE is as good as it is.

Re:Other forms of payment

[DuckDodgers]

Come on! This is Blizzard we're talking about.

If they announced the game today, a few weeks after WINE 1.0 went final, then WINE 4.0 will be out before Diablo 3.

A native Linux port would be great for many games. But it's likely WINE will be a better implementation of the Windows XP API than the one in XP itself before Diablo 3 hits the market.

Re:Other forms of payment

[marco.antonio.costa]

Well, I certainly hope so for wine`s sake, I really like it. But having a native linux port would be degrees higher in awesomeness. :-)

But I agree, D3 is likely to come out late 2013. :P

Re:Other forms of payment

[Anonymous Coward]

> So what's keeping them away from Linux?

The thousands of different configurations of each distribution between each randomly-API-and-ABI-breaking patch level release of the linux kernel. Graphics aren't so hard to manage -- everything else is.

In other words, which Linux are you talking about?

Re:Other forms of payment

[darkpixel2k]

1. Linux desktop users make up a tremendously small portion of the home PC market. The development effort to port everything to Linux and support it is likely not to cover the added costs.

True. But if Blizzard were to do something along the lines of accepting payments for a linux version of Diablo II at a slightly higher cost than the Windows version, we could speak with our pocketbooks. They could accept the money with the understanding that if they didn't receive enough funds to provide a linux version, we would get our money back. If they did receive enough funds, we get the game because we've 'pre-ordered' it.

2. Many people run Linux at home to get good use of hardware that can't handle Microsoft XP or Vista. Most modern games wouldn't run on those machines even if they were ported to Linux.

I would bet that's a small number. Sure, there are people out there who still have their 486SX running an ancient version of slackware because they don't want to throw away a 'perfectly good machine' or whatever--but the majority of Linux users out there most-likely have 'average' hardware in their systems. It's not the 'top of the line' crap you need to run Vista simply because Linux doesn't require that. If game developers start writing great games for Linux that require more horsepower, people will start buying more and more powerful Linux boxen.

3. A portion of the Linux user-base are free software advocates, so some are philosophically opposed to purchasing proprietary software.

Once again, I'd bet that's a small number. I started using Linux because it was free and I didn't want to pay for Windows again. (Can't transfer your OEM copy of Windows to a new machine.) But I do pay for applications. I bought moneydance because it's a decent home finance package. All the 'free' versions for Linux suck. If someone came out with a development IDE similar to Visual Studio (circa 2002) that handled python, javascript, and HTML, I would lay down some cash.

It boils down to the fact that there are some great open source applications out there--but when there's a void that can be filled by a commercial product, a lot of people will consider buying it. And those zelots that are running Linux because it's 'free' are also the kind of users who won't run windows or buy Diablo because it isn't 'free', so we can leave them out of the picture.

Seriously though--Blizzard should open up pre-orders for Diablo III and StarCraft II on Linux. I'd bet there's enough demand to make it worth their while.

Re:Other forms of payment

[Walter Carver]

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 :-/

Re:Other forms of payment

[DuckDodgers]

That's not a bad idea with the pre-orders.

On the other hand, I think many home Linux PC users aren't necessarily running ancient hardware, just something with an old enough graphics card and "only" 1 GB of RAM or less that just doesn't cut the requirements I presume Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 will have.

Re:Other forms of payment

[DuckDodgers]

A Linux port would be fantastic. But I quite seriously don't expect Diablo 3 until the second half of 2010 at the earliest. By that point, Wine should be able to handle it out of the box or with a few tweaks. (My hat is off to the Wine team. I never imagined they would get as far as they have.)

Re:Other forms of payment

[darkpixel2k]

On the other hand, I think many home Linux PC users aren't necessarily running ancient hardware, just something with an old enough graphics card and "only" 1 GB of RAM or less that just doesn't cut the requirements I presume Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 will have.

True, however instead of having to pay for the game, pay for a new machine including graphics hardware, and then pay for Windows, I can just pay for the game some graphics hardware, and maybe more RAM. Still much cheaper than buying a new system and Windows just so I can play Diablo.

Re:Other forms of payment

[dotancohen]

There are other errors and 404's on that site as well. Write to the US address to let them know about the website errors.

Re:Other forms of payment

[DuckDodgers]

Certainly. But it's cheaper still to decide not to buy Diablo 3 at all, or to wait another three years (or whatever) until you buy your next PC.

Re:Other forms of payment

[rpillala]

I used the contact form and got a reply that the company was legally restricted from taking suggestions via email. The CSR suggested I post my ideas at the battle.net suggestions forum for D2:http://www.battle.net/forums/board.aspx?ForumName=suggestions. Sure enough, there are a couple of threads there with suggestions for D3. I figure something like this could take the form of a petition. I don't have the credentials at the moment to login to post on the forum. Sadly, I'm considering buying D2 again since I can't find mine. Or I could keep looking. It's sad, really :)

Re:Other forms of payment

[dotancohen]

If someone came out with a development IDE similar to Visual Studio (circa 2002) that handled python, javascript, and HTML, I would lay down some cash.

You don't even need to lay out the cash. Go try out Kdevelop, and file bugs. KDE 4.1 is around the corner, and they are seriously fixing bugs like crazy. I filed probably 20 in the past week, and five or so are already closed. Now's the time.

Re:Other forms of payment

[TheSunborn]

development IDE similar to Visual Studio (circa 2002) that handled python, javascript, and HTML, I would lay down some cash.

Any specific reason you do not want to use Eclipse? There is a rather good python(Just google python eclipse plugin).

For javascript I use JSEclipse. The repository for JSEclipse is at http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/jseclipse/autoinstall or browser to http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/jseclipse/

(There are plenty of html plugins but I havent used any of them, so I can't recomand any specific one.

Re:Other forms of payment

[darkpixel2k]

You don't even need to lay out the cash. Go try out Kdevelop, and file bugs. KDE 4.1 is around the corner, and they are seriously fixing bugs like crazy. I filed probably 20 in the past week, and five or so are already closed. Now's the time.

Maybe it's time to dust off kdevelop again and give it a shot. The last time I tried it was probably a year ago, and I couldn't stand it. Although I am taking a liking to the new KomodoEdit ActiveState recently open sourced.

Re:Other forms of payment

[darkpixel2k]

Any specific reason you do not want to use Eclipse?

1. I despise Java.

2. Every single Java app from an IDE, all the way down to a text editor carries this bulky framework with it that immediately consumes all the memory in my system. It doesn't matter if I'm running it on Windows or Linux.

3. All Java apps are ugly as sin. And it's not that they just lack 'beauty', but I think they actually go out of the way to try and hurt the user. (Remember these Dilbert strips? dilbert-20020923 dilbert-20020924 (I am also aware of the irony that my website looks like absolute crap. I am not a UI designer.)

4. It's a pain in the ass to start developing in Python when using Eclipse. Maybe it's just me, but it takes FOREVER to get Eclipse started, setup, and to begin developing.

I'm not trying to start a flamewar, but I toggle back and forth between vi and kate (but mostly vi) because the UI isn't horrible, and it's quick to start developing. Plus vi is easy to use when I'm connected to a remote machine to make some quick changes or debugging.

Re:Other forms of payment

[bckrispi]

Javascript development is now fully supported in the Ganymede release of Eclipse.

Re:Other forms of payment

[TheSunborn]

1: Well you don't have to code java, so that should not matter.

2: I don't think eclipse is that bad. It currently use less memmory then my Firefox 3.

3: Have you looked at eclipse? They use swt which mean that for linux they use real gtk widgets. (Swt is a wrapped to the native widget set of the platform. They even used to mave a swt-motif wrapper but that was stopped for some reason :}

4: What java version was that? My eclipse only use a few seconds to start with sun jre 1.5, but if you used it with the gcj that comes as default with most linux, that might be your problem. Gcj+eclipse=Really Really bad!. (And crashing and throwing exceptions and other hell).

Re:Other forms of payment

[darkpixel2k]

1: Well you don't have to code java, so that should not matter.

I'll amend my statement. I despise coding in java, and I avoid running java apps whenever possible. ;)

2: I don't think eclipse is that bad. It currently use less memmory then my Firefox 3.

Actually, this is the first time I've run eclipse on Ubuntu 8.04. It uses waaaay less memory that it did under previous versions, and it started quickly too.

3: Have you looked at eclipse? They use swt which mean that for linux they use real gtk widgets. (Swt is a wrapped to the native widget set of the platform. They even used to mave a swt-motif wrapper but that was stopped for some reason :}

Yeah--the interface is all curvey and stuff--but I just can't stand it personally. I think it's ugly as sin.

4: What java version was that? My eclipse only use a few seconds to start with sun jre 1.5, but if you used it with the gcj that comes as default with most linux, that might be your problem. Gcj+eclipse=Really Really bad!. (And crashing and throwing exceptions and other hell).

Whatever came with Ubuntu 7.10. I don't think it ever crashed on me, it was just slow as hell.
I suppose I'll give it a shot under 8.04 and see how well it works. It still doesn't take care of requirement 1 thought... ;)

Of course I'll take java any day over .NET/mono on any platform.

Re:Other forms of payment

[darkpixel2k]

Have you looked at eclipse?

I know I'm double-replying to you, but after I installed eclipse and pydev and fired everything up, eclipse said there were updates. So I clicked to install them, and then the license agreement popped up for pydev. It said pydev is not free and I am using a 30-day evaluation version, after that I have to purchase it.

...and that ends my looking at eclipse for python development.

Re:Other forms of payment

[bckrispi]

USER ERROR!

Pydev is entirely open source, licensed under the Free EPL. Pydev Extensions, however, is the commercial side of this product. It sounds like someone grabbed the wrong plugin.

Re:Other forms of payment

[darkpixel2k]

Pydev is entirely open source, licensed under the Free EPL. Pydev Extensions, however, is the commercial side of this product. It sounds like someone grabbed the wrong plugin.

Meh. Odd how I could have grabbed the wrong plugin by typing 'apt-get install eclipse eclipse-pydev'
Maybe the free pydev extension tries to get you to install the non-free extensions.

I keep trying to get away from eclipse, but you guys just keep dragging me back in. ;)

Re:Other forms of payment

[LandDolphin]

Seriously though--Blizzard should open up pre-orders for Diablo III and StarCraft II on Linux. I'd bet there's enough demand to make it worth their while.

Guess it depends, if they said that they expect it to cost $X Million to make it for Linux, and if they got enough pre-orders to meet the cost, then they would start working on porting it over to linux. But then they have the hassle of refunding everyone if they don't meet the $X million in pre-orders.

Re:Other forms of payment

[darkpixel2k]

Guess it depends, if they said that they expect it to cost $X Million to make it for Linux, and if they got enough pre-orders to meet the cost, then they would start working on porting it over to linux. But then they have the hassle of refunding everyone if they don't meet the $X million in pre-orders.

Not a big deal. Go to any bank and say "over the next year I plan to have people deposit money which I will hold on to until such time as I need to spend it or refund it. Also, I expect at least $100,000 to be in there within the first month. Can you give me a great interest rate?"

The bank will say "hell yeah", and even if Blizzard has to refund everyone, there should be more than enough interest to pay for the trouble. Alternatively, they could say that $2 of your 'pre-order' is non-refundable to help cover transfer fees, etc... I'd still pre-order.

Re:Other forms of payment

[crashfrog]

On the other hand, compatibility from generation to generation of Linux applications is pretty solid.

The last time my Linux install updated its kernel (mind you, completely without asking me) it broke wireless networking, the display drivers, and MythTV, all at once.

So, in my experience, compatibility is shit. Enough other people have had this experience, I notice, to make "don't upgrade unless you have to, once you get it working" to be standard advice in every Linux book I've ever read.

Dialbo 3

[jollyreaper]

The sounds you hear are college careers ending before they've even begun.

Re:Dialbo 3

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh krud. Fool me once shame on you, Blizzard, feel me twice shame on me. There goes my second chance at finally graduating. At this rate, I'll never be able to afford my own basement.

Re:Dialbo 3

[Anonymous Coward]

That already happened when World of Warcraft was released.

Re:Dialbo 3

[BagOCrap]

Oh krud. Fool me once shame on you, Blizzard, feel me twice shame on me. There goes my second chance at finally graduating. At this rate, I'll never be able to afford my own basement.

If I were a part of Blizzard... Wait, never mind. I'd rather not feel you at all. ;)

Re:Dialbo 3

[flyingsquid]

The sounds you hear are college careers ending before they've even begun.

Yes, and it sounds like this:

click.

click.

clickclick.

click.

clickclickclick.

clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick...

Re:Dialbo 3

[Anonymous Coward]

Diablo 2 was released in 2000. Unless you are doing a 10 year program, I'd be a little worried at the prospects of Diablo 3.

Re:Dialbo 3

[Anonymous Coward]

Well Diablo I wrecked my middle school career, and Diablo II got my high school career. I already graduated from college, so I guess Diablo III gets to take my marriage or job...

Re:Dialbo 3

[AutumnLeaf]

"I can't AE! I can't AE Oh god... it's a wipe."

There goes my productivity again

[Anonymous Coward]

Just when my new macbook pro was keeping me awayfrom diablo 2

Re:There goes my productivity again

[Jarik C-Bol]

its not stopping you, there are patches.

Re:There goes my productivity again

[oDDmON oUT]

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.

Re:There goes my productivity again

[4D6963]

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!

Re:There goes my productivity again

[christurkel]

I don't think so. That installer simply "carbonizes" it, ie, let's run on OS 9 and 10.2, so I assume it's PowerPC only.

Re:There goes my productivity again

[oberondarksoul]

Mac OS X on Intel has a translation wrapper called Rosetta which lets most PowerPC binaries run.

Re:There goes my productivity again

[Anonymous Coward]

Kind of. If you have a newer macbook or ibook running 10.5.3 you won't be able to play the OSX version of diablo2 or starcraft. They still use the old drawsprocket APIs, and unfortunately apple broke backwards compatibility -- calls to DSpFindBestContext() always fail, for example.

If you have a macbook from early 2007 or earlier you're probably fine.

Details:

http://www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?fn=support&t=535843&p=1&#post535843

Re:There goes my productivity again

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I don't think so. That installer simply "carbonizes" it, ie, let's run on OS 9 and 10.2, so I assume it's PowerPC only.

You are incorrect. It runs fine on my Intel MacBook with one exception... it can't handle the widescreen resolution needed, so it won't run fullscreen.

Re:There goes my productivity again

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Kind of. If you have a newer macbook or ibook running 10.5.3 you won't be able to play the OSX version of diablo2 or starcraft. They still use the old drawsprocket APIs, and unfortunately apple broke backwards compatibility -- calls to DSpFindBestContext() always fail, for example. If you have a macbook from early 2007 or earlier you're probably fine.

I bought a Core 2 Duo MacBook in November of 2007 and it runs Diablo 2, although you can't run it fullscreen (just in a window).

Re:There goes my productivity again

[DanOrc451]

I'm using this strategy now, and I'm happy to report it's working well!

Part of the unexpected fun of it is getting young people from my old WoW guild to play D2 with me and watch their brain 'splode when they can only run it in 800x600. It's strangely satisfying, try it!

Re:There goes my productivity again

[NoStrings]

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

Phew

[Godji]

I am so glad I never got around to playing the first two. That way, I'll have a good reason not to play this one - I've missed the storyline.

Think of the countless hours I saved by saving countless hours twice before!

Re:Phew

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually DID waste countless hours of my life on the first two. Thank goodness Blizzard decided to charge an unreasonable monthly fee for WoW (which is, effectively, Diablo 3.)

Re:Phew

[Godji]

Isn't WoW more like Warcraft 4? I never played WoW or Diablo, which explains my n00bish question.

By the way, there are two things I don't want to ever touch in my life, because addiction and severe negative consequences are all but certain: hard drugs and WoW.

Re:Phew

[4D6963]

Isn't WoW more like Warcraft 4?

No, if WoW was anything like that I would have played it. Do we know if they have any plans to go back to the old Warcraft formula? Cause I loved it!

Re:Phew

[Godji]

They won't go back. That would be admitting "See, WoW is good, but it's not good enough, so we WILL make a better Warcraft!". At the very least it would be a fork in the franchise.

The success of WoW spelled the death of Warcraft as we knew it.

I don't know why they made WoW as opposed to WoD (World of Diablo) in the first place, the RPG being closer to the WoW concept than the RTS. But what's done is done.

Re:Phew

[mattgoldey]

Yeah, you sure dodged a bullet. Just think of all the FUN you could have had. *whew* Lucky break for you!

Re:Phew

[1karmik1]

I'd say because at the time the attention for the Warcraft franchise was far higher (having Warcraft 3 released nont that much time before) while Diablo was already a cold one.

Re:Phew

[QunaLop]

probably, and there is starcraft 2...

Re:Phew

[yanos]

The storyline? You mean kill the big evil bad ass? And when that's done, kill the big evil bad ass' brother in an expansion pack? I loooove the Diablo series but the 'story' is a joke.

Re:Phew

[Surt]

Yes, it's already been announced, Starcraft 3.

Re:Phew

[thedrx]

Whoosh.

Re:Phew

[ottothecow]

and diablo has historically been developed by the team at the former blizzard north while the warcraft series was maintained by the core blizzard group.

Re:Phew

[Anonymous Coward]

Diablo 1 and 2 have a storyline?

Re:Phew

[rpillala]

At certain times, you do feel like one cog in a RTS machine. It depends on whether you play to the game design or try to find ways to play against it. In the past, for example, priests were pigeonholed as healers, and if you took on that role, what you did was basically the same as what any other priest did. With gear sets standard for the priest class, you even looked identical to the other priests. Also in the past were engagements with 40 players on one side and a boss monster on the other. At those times, you could feel that this was still Warcraft even though the game genre was completely different.

Re:Phew

[LandDolphin]

Well, we can always hope they make a New Warcraft RTS game, as it does not interfere with the MMO game.

I thought the same thing about WoW vs WoD. But, I guess it worked for them. Maybe in a few years we will get WoD too.

Second most popular

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this is going to be their second most popular game, according to this release http://www.theonion.com/content/video/warcraft_sequel_lets_gamers_play .

But

[eclectro]

Isn't the monster at the end already beaten??

Re:But

[ewrong]

yes 4.2 million times by me alone.

Re:But

[Anonymous Coward]

If I remember correctly, the destruction of the worldstone keep at the end of the expansion left the world open to chaos in some way that could go towards explaining it all.

Re:But

[morari]

Diablo could always come back for a third time...

I think a much more reasonable story would probably involve Azmodan and Belial however, two of the Lesser Evils mentioned through tomes in the first game.

Re:But

[TheRaven64]

Do lesser evils stay lesser when all of the greater evils are dead? Seems like a power vacuum to me...

Re:But

[morari]

All I know is that Duriel was way harder than Mephisto and Baal combined. So, don't let the titles fool you. ;)

Re:But

[redcaboodle]

Not just that but there is something seriously wrong with that archangel, Tyrael. I bet he had his own reasons for destroying the world stone and they are not good. Didn't Izzy hint at something there?
Funnily enough I started a new game just yesterday.

Re:But

[TheRaven64]

Yeah, that bugged me too. Mehpisto was easy to kill. Stay on the other side of the river from him and keep hitting him with ranged attacks - the lightning spreads out, and you can kill him with a belt full of potions and most of them still left at the end if you've got decent lightning resistance and regeneration. Baal was a huge anticlimax - I only completed LoD once but when I got to the end it seemed like there was nothing much to do, just hit him a few times and he dies. Duriel, on the other hand, froze you so that all you could do was stand there consuming rejuvenation potions until you unfroze and ran away.

OMFG

[anarkavre]

I have been wishing for this for years and was starting to have no faith in Blizzard. I was thinking they were too involved with WoW to care for Diablo anymore. I guess I was wrong. I am so happy I could play Diablo or Diablo 2 right now!

Re:OMFG

[ewrong]

It's been a hell of a long wait, bring on the mindless hack & slash.

Re:OMFG

[DeeQ]

After a couple of the splash screens and d3 rumors i went out and bought the battle chest with d1 d2 lod and stupid strat guide. Best 30 dollars I've ever used to buy something that I had already owned at one point. My guess is the price for the chest will get bounced up since the d3 announcement.

Rating Pending

[rpillala]

Fair enough, but the www site asked me to enter my date of birth before showing me the cinematic teaser trailer. Then I watched the teaser trailer and didn't see anything even remotely offensive in it. Did anyone else see like a bare tit or extreme violence in there that I missed?

Just the existence of demons and monsters is an issue?

Re:Rating Pending

[Anonymous Coward]

Blood.

Usually any blood is enough to get an M rating.

Re:Rating Pending

[Machtyn]

The teaser didn't have much in it, but the gameplay video has some pretty sick and gruesome stuff happening in it. (Particularly at the end when they show you half of a big boss battle and the big boss picks up the barbarian and ... happens.)

Re:Rating Pending

[Haeleth]

the www site asked me to enter my date of birth

Has anyone figured out what the point of these checks is yet? It's as stupid as those COPPA checks every phpBB has these days. Just a pointless waste of time that doesn't even look like an effective way of "protecting" children.

Re:Rating Pending

[rpillala]

That is true, and it could just be that I clicked on the teaser first and that's when I got the age prompt. There is a ton of blood flying around in the gameplay demo.

Re:Rating Pending

[Kagura]

Did anyone else watching the (very impressive and representative) gameplay video think to yourselves, "Pick up the chipped star topaz. Pick it up. WHERE ARE YOU GO--PICK IT UP!!"?

Ahhhh, this is the game for me. :)

Re:Rating Pending

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, demons and monsters in a trailer are like darwinisms in schools...

Re:Rating Pending

[Kneo24]

I think it's some secret plot created by pedophiles. It looks to see if any kid is stupid enough to enter their actual age. Then when one is, it routes all necessary information it can gleam from that back to a master server... The thinking must be "hey, if they're stupid enough to enter their real age, maybe they're stupid enough to get into my car!"

Re:Rating Pending

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's some secret plot created by pedophiles. It looks to see if any kid is stupid enough to enter their actual age. Then when one is, it routes all necessary information it can gleam from that back to a master server... The thinking must be "hey, if they're stupid enough to enter their real age, maybe they're stupid enough to get into my car!"

It's not a car. It's a van.

I have candy. Get in the van.

Re:Rating Pending

[drew]

Out of curiosity, how did you even get through the age entry? I just tried it now, and the only years in the pulldown menu were 2001-2008. Entering 2001 wouldn't let me in, I suspect the same is true for the rest. Why in the world anyone uses option menus to enter a birthdate is beyond me, but this seems even stupider than usual.

Re:Rating Pending

[bashibazouk]

I see you are unfamiliar with the game and it's past interfaces. The skull on the right hand side border is the slider...

Re:Rating Pending

[drew]

I've spent far more time playing the past two games than I care to admit. (Honestly my first reaction when I saw the headline was "Well, there goes another year of my life") At least in the game the skulls actually look like scrollbars. Even after you pointed that out, it still took me a second or two to figure out where the scroller was - it looks like part of the border, not a scrollbar. F-ing awful interface...

Re:Rating Pending

[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking the same thing, but apparently the designers put some Barbarian specific armor and junk in that chest, so I figure they didn't want to pick up that topaz ;p

Re:Rating Pending

[Anonymous Coward]

yes i did lol

Re:Rating Pending

[Cronotrig]

yea i had a large colection of gems in the d2 days

Re:Rating Pending

[Anonymous Coward]

It's full of monsters and a young girl, clearly a recipy for disaster to anyone who's been on the Internet before.

Bring out the nerf bat

[Admiral Ag]

I thought I'd be first with: It's clear that witch doctors are massively overpowered. I demand a nerf.

Re:Bring out the nerf bat

[ztcamper]

No! They nerfed Dr. Feelgood! Where is my army of 28 skeletons backed up by 40 revives?! Diablo is just not the same if played faster than 0.5 FPS.

Oh the humanity

[Scr3wFace]

Just when I kick my crack habbit... Go figure

Re:Oh the humanity

[melikamp]

Ha ha! Funny, but Diablo III might be the only reason why I will finally close my WoW account. Finally.

Sweet Jesus! Nooooo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not *another* Blizzard subscription!

(BTW, does anyone else think the Witch Doctor class is a bit palsied?)

Re:Sweet Jesus! Nooooo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooo eee ooo ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang...

Bring out your dead! *BONG*

[CFBMoo1]

From Deckard Cain: I'm getting better, I think I'll go for a walk in Diablo 3.

From Blizzard: No your not you'll be stone dead in a moment. Look is there anything you can do?

From Deckard Cain: I feel happy! I'll identify your items free!

*KONK*

From Blizzard: Oh thanks!

From Diablo: No trouble at all, see you next Thursday!

From Blizzard: Right!

(Makes me wonder if I should bother with Wrath of the Lich King and just start saving $15/month. I did enjoy the first two games very much.)

website/browser problem

[OglinTatas]

I can't check out the trailers because their stupid age selection dialog is all mouse controlled dropdowns (no keyboard controls) AND they only have 8 selections. Therefore, I can only be born January 1-8, thru August 1-8, 2001-2008. At least that's the way it is in Safari. WTF?

Re:website/browser problem

[aredubya74]

Yep, same thing in FF3. I am glad though that they believe the overtly violent content should not be shown to 7 year olds. /sarcasm

Re:website/browser problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Drag the skull (on the rhs) down - it's the scroll slider... HTH

(PS I had exactly the same problem as you)

Re:website/browser problem

[ConanG]

Youtube video of opening trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGNLFnADJ_0

Gameplay video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPxRoG4g6mw
and here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnmD0aqDqTM

Not as high quality as on the official site, but you take what you can get, eh?

Re:website/browser problem

[bmorency]

Here is a link to a better quality version of the gameplay. It is 19 minutes long too. Hopefully it can withstand the slashdot effect. http://www.eurogamer.pt/tv_video.php?playlist_id=11691

Re:website/browser problem

[Aaron England]

Not as high quality as on the official site, but you take what you can get, eh?

Under the youtube video there's a "watch in high quality" link which will play it in similar quality to the official site.

Re:website/browser problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Not as high quality as on the official site, but you take what you can get, eh?

Under the youtube video there's a "watch in high quality" link which will play it in similar quality to the official site.

I didn't see one. If it's a link, you could perhaps post it?

Re:website/browser problem

[Anonymous Coward]

And here's a link to the actual (195MB) video: http://212.188.150.58/1318e89048c38fe3a4576090b082f932_diablo3-gameplay-en-GB_stream_flvcopy_large.flv

Re:website/browser problem

[hampton]

If you add "&fmt=18" to the query string of a YouTube video, it'll play the high quality version (if there is one).

Re:website/browser problem

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Yeah, so, the gem

[Yacoby]

OK, so, I have been to the site, but what does the gem do? I heard if you click it 100 times, you get sent a beta...

Re:Yeah, so, the gem

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to open Bill's PC 200 times before that works.

Re:Yeah, so, the gem

[Bieeanda]

The gem is working as intended.

Re:Yeah, so, the gem

[Anonymous Coward]

"Perfect Gem Activated."

Re:Yeah, so, the gem

[melikamp]

"[the gem] is working correctly and has more than exceeded our expectations"

Just in time...

[nirjana]

... since I was just beginning to get tired of devoting 40+ hours/week of my time to World of Warcraft.

Re:Just in time...

[Yacoby]

This is Diablo 3, you are never going to manage to only play 40 hours a week. I suggest you give up your job now, saves the problem of deciding if you can stop playing D3 long enough to hand in your notice.

"Highly Cooperative"

[n0dna]

The only thing that frightens me is that they describe the game as "highly cooperative."

That's what killed Diablo II for most of the legit players. If you were lucky, maybe as many as 2 people you knew in real life were also players, so you were left to play with strangers and 9 year-olds on Battle.Net. The 1.10 patch made the game no longer possible to finish by yourself.

It's tough to assemble a party of reasonable size from cheaters and griefers and beggars, let alone the guy with the hacked gear who drops in, kills Diablo, Pindleskin, Mephisto, then Baal, and then drops right back out while you're still in the middle of Act 1.

Co-Op is great, but please don't force those of us who enjoy playing the game to rely on the children who can't afford the $15 a month for WoW.

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[Anonymous Coward]

You could have restricted the game to people you wanted to play with by setting a password.

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[SB5]

But if you don't have friends who are you going to tell the password too so you aren't playing alone?

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[rpillala]

I'm sure the game will have a single player mode. Wait, here from the FAQ:

Will there be a single-player component in addition to multiplayer?

Yes. In addition to battling the hordes of the Burning Hells cooperatively with friends over Battle.net, players will be able to adventure through the world of Diablo III solo. More details on both the single-player and multiplayer experience will be revealed at a later date.

You might also look into TOG, a multi-game guild with a minimum age of 25. This is when men's brains are finally fully formed, so you get a decent group of folks there.

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[Narishma]

Make new friends.

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[thermian]

The 1.10 patch made the game no longer possible to finish by yourself.

Did it? I don't recall that, The one problem I had with the Diablo games was that your character could get so absurdly powerful that you could beat anything.

I used to play as a sorcerer (memory fails, I don't remember the class name). By the time I stopped playing my character was so deadly that other players in the party had to run away before I used my offensive spells, because they'd get creamed too, no matter how well armoured they were.

It got a bit tedious in the end, all I'd ever see was dead things, because nothing got close enough to actually harm me.

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[Explodicle]

You've never been able to harm party members in Diablo II. Are you thinking of a different game?

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[Explodicle]

The best way to get GOOD co-op if your friends don't play is to join one of the few remaining guilds. I'be been a member of the Amazon Basin for years, and they're still a bunch of fun, skilled, and mature teammates. Even without them, one can solo all the way through Hell difficulty with the right character builds.

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[thermian]

I meant my character in Diablo, but the point remains the characters could get far too powerful. I had no problem playing diablo II through on my own.

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[Kneo24]

It did, for the most part. You needed some highly decked out gear to be able to reasonbly solo hell difficulty. After the 1.10 patch, my bowazon, which didn't have uber gear, took over an hour to beat Baal. Before that patch I could solo the game reasonably.

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[oneiron]

I never had any problems assembling full parties. Also, the threat of griefers just makes the game more fun for me. Bnet's matchmaking system and thriving community basically made all of the things you mentioned a non-issue for me...

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[Explodicle]

Oh, ok. That's true.

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[Stormie]

The 1.10 patch made the game no longer possible to finish by yourself.

What the hell? That's completely untrue. While multiplayer was easier (difficulty scaled with number of players, but really, not proportional to the power of multiple players), it was perfectly possible to finish the game solo.

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[mqduck]

a multi-game guild with a minimum age of 25

Wow, in two years (at least as long as it'll actually take the game to get released), I'll be able to join. Too bad I have no interest in playing with pretentious jerks, mature or not.

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[StupidKatz]

The only thing that frightens me is that they describe the game as "highly cooperative."

That's what killed Diablo II for most of the legit players. If you were lucky, maybe as many as 2 people you knew in real life were also players, so you were left to play with strangers and 9 year-olds on Battle.Net. The 1.10 patch made the game no longer possible to finish by yourself.

No, this is wrong. It IS possible to finish Diablo II while solo - I've done so with at least a necromancer (which were given enough of a boost in 1.10 to make this possible) and a shape-shifting wolf druid.

Diablo II was - and still is - a fantastic single-player game which can be beaten solo. You do need to think a bit while building the character, though, and some characters are more difficult to play this way than others.

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[Anonymous Coward]

If you couldn't beat the game solo--even on Hell--in 1.10, you just were bad at the game, don't blame Blizzard.

I never played Diablo I or II on Battle.net because I simply didn't enjoy it for the reasons you mention. I occasionally played online with friends via TCP/IP, but never on bnet.

There are communities for players who prefer TCP/IP play if you find yourself stuck in single player mode in the new game, too.

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, Blizzard has come a little way since then in terms of number of players. Heard of a game called World of Warcraft?

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it too bad?

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[Cronotrig]

it is very possible to go solo with the right builds you can solo with a bone necro or a summon or if u want a realy cheap build go with a hammerdin. most items that ad to skills you can shop from vendor. also try a trap sin or a javazon the game only truely starts getting hard to solo only in hell mode but beating normal mode is a breeze iv played this game on and off for yrs but now the crack is back:)

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[rpillala]

Oh yes I can second Amazon Basin.

Also the point about character builds is key. Patch 1.10 changed the game and made existing character builds stop working. That's because people generally hadn't considered survivability. Once you started thinking and planning for survivability, the problems of solo play dissipated.

Lack of skill point redistribution made this very discouraging. Let's hope Blizz includes some relief for bad point choices or experiment failures.

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[argStyopa]

"You might also look into TOG, a multi-game guild with a minimum age of 25. This is when men's brains seem to give up completely on getting anywhere past 15 developmentally, so you get a decent group of folks there."

Fixed that for you.

-My Wife

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[Max Romantschuk]

It isn't just men's brains. The human brain undergoes some hefty neurological changes starting in the early teens, and finally being complete around 25. Basically a hell of a lot of synapses grow in young people's brains, forming a huge amount of connections. After that they're optimized, so the reason teens seem so fucked up in the head is that their brains are literally reconnecting itself and purging non-needed connections.

Disclaimer: IANAN, IJLT (I Am Not A Neurologist, I Just Like Trivia.)

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[rpillala]

Oh somehow I thought it was different for women. Do you have a source for this? I like trivia too.

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[nuzak]

By "finish", he meant "play the exact same game three times". Hell difficulty was seriously buffed in 1.10, so you had to either have one of a few uber-builds or grind for gear forever.

Kind of like another Blizzard game, dontcha think?

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[Max Romantschuk]

Sorry no, most of this info is based of TV documentaries, as far as I can remember. But I do believe that women and men "fininsh" process at a different pace, women faster that is... But this is only a very vague recollection... :)

I guess Google would know more if one knew proper terms for this stuff to search with...

Re:"Highly Cooperative"

[Stormie]

Yes, by finish the game, I meant finish Hell difficulty too. You need an effective build (uses synergies for heavy damage, and is also capable of dealing a second type of damage for mobs immune to your primary) but you're not limited to "one of a few uber-builds" by any means.

I will concede that 1.10 changed enough skills from 1.09 that if you already had a high level character when 1.10 landed, it's very possible that you could find yourself now incurably gimp and unable to beat the game unless you started a new character with 1.10-appropriate skill choices.

Assuming you're not joking

[ctid]

Grab the skull on the right-hand side and use it as a slider. That's how it works here on Safari.

What are we killing now?

[andytrevino]

We've already killed Diablo in Diablo 1. Then, in Diablo II, we killed him AGAIN, and killed his brothers and scores of underling bosses.

Are we now killing him a THIRD time, along with his brothers, cousins, college roommate, and that guy he talked to at the bus stop last week? How does Evil(tm) finance its operation and pay its underling bosses? More importantly, how many computer mice must the forces of Good(tm) sacrifice to stop this nonsense?!

Re:What are we killing now?

[ConanG]

He wasn't killed in D1. The soulstone trapped his essence. Then your idiot hero sticks it in his head and becomes Diablo (aka "The Wanderer") in D2.

Don't know what happens in D3 obviously, but the soulstones are destroyed. My guess is something to do with Tyriel in Heaven. Maybe a war in Heaven leading to a new "Diablo"?

Re:What are we killing now?

[Nathonix]

Kraid and Ridley have often made me wonder the same questions.

Re:What are we killing now?

[Herkum01]

Are we now killing him a THIRD time, along with his brothers, cousins, college roommate, and that guy he talked to at the bus stop last week? How does Evil(tm) finance its operation and pay its underling bosses?

Please refer to Bill Gates. Example, Steve Ballmer, college roommate, Financing: Microsoft, you get where I am going.

Re:What are we killing now?

[Dachannien]

Well, at the end of the Diablo II expansion, Tyrael destroys the Worldstone, and the gist of things is that Anything Could Happen after that. (Including Blizzard co-branding a new Diablo III mouse with extra-rugged buttons.)

Re:What are we killing now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only two of the three soulstones were destroyed, Diablo's and Mephisto's

Baal got his back at the end.

Re:What are we killing now?

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not so much the idea of killing him again -- the biggest issue I have is when I kill an underling boss and I get a crappy unique item. I sell it to an NPC, and then I go back out, kill another boss, and find THE SAME DAMN ITEM!!! The only conclusion I have is that Larzuk is a bastard arms dealer that works for BOTH sides.

Re:What are we killing now?

[ConanG]

You're right, but he's destroyed with the Worldstone (giant soulstone) at the end of Lord of Destruction. So, arguably, his soulstone is gone, too.

Of course, none of that really matters. Blizzard will do whatever they want with the story. If they want to bring back any or all of the previous bosses, they'll figure something out. I just think something with Tyriel makes the most sense since Angel's aren't supposed to meddle in human affairs and he has most certainly been meddling.

Re:What are we killing now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I seem to remember the "Worldstone" (or something similar) being destroyed at the end of the expansion, sending it's shards out across the world. Tyriel basically said "Well, I'm not 100% sure, but I think that's gonna screw up a LOT of stuff".

My guess is Diablo 3 will deal heavily with the fallout from the destruction of the Worldstone.

On the subject of killing Diablo, where's he gonna go, Detroit?

Re:What are we killing now?

[Gavin Scott]

The whole thing was a plot by Tyriel to allow him to arrange the destruction of the world stone, the only thing standing in the way of his final conquest of heaven and earth.

Tyriel is clearly going to be the end boss of D3.

G.

Re:What are we killing now?

[Jugalator]

Don't know what happens in D3 obviously,

Me neither, at least not as for the details, but it seems to have something to do with a comet crashing down in Tristram. *shrug* According to what was on blizzard.com/diablo3 at least earlier today (that site seem to have lost a lot of info now though, not sure what's going on there, if Blizzard is maybe still working on the initial version). I thought it was odd they didn't follow the D2 storyline with the worldstone shattering. But maybe that's somehow related to how the events unfold in D3 as well. Hm.

Re:What are we killing now?

[lordharsha]

Maybe it'll be the story of the sin war? The barbarian looks a lot like the ancients in diablo2, and perhaps the witch-doctors later gave rise to the necromancers.

Re:What are we killing now?

[lordharsha]

or perhaps the worldstone was what was keeping hell from breaking onto the world. so literally, all hell breaks loose. sorry for the double post

Re:What are we killing now?

[IHateEverybody]

Don't know what happens in D3 obviously,

Me neither, at least not as for the details, but it seems to have something to do with a comet crashing down in Tristram. *shrug* According to what was on blizzard.com/diablo3 at least earlier today (that site seem to have lost a lot of info now though, not sure what's going on there, if Blizzard is maybe still working on the initial version). I thought it was odd they didn't follow the D2 storyline with the worldstone shattering. But maybe that's somehow related to how the events unfold in D3 as well. Hm.

The cinematic teaser shows a glimpse of the destruction of the Worldstone, with brief shot of Tyriel hurling his sword at it. So they might follow up on that event.

Re:What are we killing now?

[Kingrames]

In case you didn't read the instruction manual that came with the first game, the only way to contain the flawed soulstone of mephisto was to implant it into the skull of the person most resistant to the lure of evil and to lock him away.

The hero of the first game was clearly aware of this and made the ultimate sacrifice, mind, body, and soul, to contain Diablo long enough for someone else to find a way to destroy him and his brothers and the soulstones.

Dammit, man, now you've got me geeking out.

Re:What are we killing now?

[melikamp]

Huh? That game had a story? I was just playing to hear a sound of a rune falling, and then check if it was Gul or above. To each his own, I guess.

Re:What are we killing now?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Evil never dies, really.

Re:What are we killing now?

[Deaddy]

That's technically not possible, since a unique can only be generated once per game. If there would be a unique, but it's not possible because it already dropped or there is no unique for this item type, a rare item with triple durability will be generated.

Re:What are we killing now?

[nuzak]

Why don't you just code up a 10K or so win32 app where you click the mouse over a square and every 20,000 clicks or so it plays a sound and a message telling you which rune you got?

Some of us like a little more backstory pretense to our mindless clicking.

Why isn't this a console title?

[Anonymous Coward]

This it the kind of game that should come out for both the PS3 and XB360 (and allow cross-console gaming).

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[Nathonix]

no. to do that would be to alienate their core audience, the first two games were pc games, the controls that are familiar to the players would have to be bastardized to fit onto the control pads, AND 360 owners would have to pay for their online service, ps3 owners wouldnt, and battlenet has always been free. It's pretty much guaranteed that anyone that enjoys diablo owns a PC, blizz cannot guarantee that they will also own a current gen console.

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[Yvan256]

All three next-generation consoles have USB ports, so just make it "requires keyboard and mouse".

I wish all console games supported it too, first-person shooters with a stupid gamepad and crappy analog sticks doesn't cut it.

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[DeeQ]

Actually D1 Was also released on the Ps1. I have a copy in my house somewhere. (Much preferred to play on the pc tho)

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[eddy]

>no. to do that would be to alienate their core audience

What? Their greatest fans are going to go.. ''Oh, must hav... wait, there's a PS3 version too? Then I will not buy the PC version. Blizzard are traitors!''

I'm not talking about dumbing down (ha!) the PC version, I'm talking about doing console versions too.

I too have both a mouse and keyboard plugged into my PS3, but sadly console developers seems stuck in the 80s and, with a few exceptions, believe people actually PREFER the standard controller in games like FPSes.

In fact, I cancelled my Battlefield: Bad Company pre-order when no dev would commit to fixing this issue. B:BC is so backwards that you can't even flip the left and right analog controls. Apparently the 10% of the population that are left-handed and have better motor skills in their left hand (which controls movement, the right controls aiming), can just go suck it.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of idiots design these games. They have millions-of-dollar budgets, but can't get a basic thing like keyboard and mouse support, or even swapping left/right stick, into the game. They do have time to plaster the internet with weekly screenshots and videos though.

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[FloodSpectre]

If I recall, that PS1 version also had your character moving at double normal speeds, which seemed a little strange. I never played it, but a friend of mine in high school owned it after I got him addicted to the PC version.

Also seems it was published by EA. Bet you wouldn't see that happening these days.

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[Derosian]

Dear God No!!!

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I'm not talking about dumbing down (ha!) the PC
> version, I'm talking about doing console versions too.

And since when have PC games NOT had to be dramatically dumbed down in order to be playable by the konsole kiddies???

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[tepples]

All three next-generation consoles have USB ports, so just make it "requires keyboard and mouse".

All three next generation consoles also have lockout chips, and console makers refuse to digitally sign programs that require a keyboard and mouse.

I wish all console games supported it too

Even the local multiplayer games? How easily do you think you'd be able to fit four keyboards and four mice around one TV, or how likely are parents to buy four consoles, one for each member of the household?

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[Yvan256]

Then explain to me why we can use a keyboard with Opera on the Wii and how we can use a keyboard while playing FF XI on both the Xbox 360 and the PS2.

As for your multiplayer game comment, I said supported not mandatory.

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[Anonymous Coward]

you got it wrong. they don't ignore southpaws, they hate them. You're a minority, and we know how much america loves a minority...

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[Kneo24]

If they allowed for mouse and keyboard support on a console, those FPS's would be so god damn easy that people would actually complain and stop buying their craptacular games. People would be forced to realize how easy those games were, and the only challenge to them is the control scheme. Not withstanding that, if only some people have a mouse and keyboard setup, the ones that did would rape every single person who didn't when playing online.

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[drsquare]

The challenge in all FPSes is the control scheme. A PC FPS would be pretty easy if you have a device which could instantly aim anywhere on the screen with absolute accuracy. They're basically just clicking contests.

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[CrashNBrn]

Sacred 2 is pretty much doing this, releasing Xbox 360 and PC version. I'm not sure if there is keyboard/mouse support on the 360 side - but on the PC side it will support using keyboard/mouse or gameController (ie 360's).

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[Doctor_Jest]

I guess by viewing a gameplay video, we've seen that the game's farther along than when they announced Diablo II. Of course, it would be nice if they made a console version too, simply because I don't have a Winders machine anymore. :)

I do have a 1st gen Macbook Pro, but I've gotten so used to console gaming in the last 5 years that using a mouse and keyboard would take some re-learning. ;)

Please, Zombie Jesus, make this a 360 game too! :P

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[Kneo24]

A lot of the FPS's on consoles are later ported to the PC. The PC variant of those games are easy, even on the hardest difficulty.

Why is that they're considerably easier on the PC? Mouse and Keyboard.

The challenge doesn't have to be the control scheme. If the console kiddies want that, let them have it. I'd rather have a game that challenges me in other ways, not on how well I can contort two joysticks.

Can't give me that? Then you're developing on the "wrong" platform.

I know console gamers bitch about this too to some extent, but maybe if they stopped buying those fucking games in the first place, they wouldn't be made so often.

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[Gothic_Walrus]

When Blizzard can make millions and get 10+ years of sales out of a PC title, there isn't much incentive for a console port.

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[Machtyn]

Not its intended use, but I've found this to be very good for Diablo II. However, it appears my $80 model is no longer made, and they've created or renamed their consumer line here

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[CronoCloud]

I take it you never played the PSone port of Diablo 1. The only thing bastardized in it is the multiplayer, it's same screen. It plays the same, though a touch faster. The controls are great, almost every console Diablo clone made after it use very similar ones.

As I watched the D3 video the first thought in my mind was: "Hey that looks like a prettier version of all those PS2 Diablo clones." Except for the lack of camera control, it seems to be fixed isometric, compared to the console games.

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[CronoCloud]

yeah Fast mode, useful in town, not so much in the dungeon. Though even normal mode is slightly faster than PC Diablo. The tradeoff for that speed is detail and smoothness of animation.

It was published by EA, but ported by Virgin Interactive. They did an excellent job, if you play it enough you might even see a couple of the bugs that are in the PC release version the PSone version is based on.

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[CronoCloud]

And since when have PC games NOT had to be dramatically dumbed down in order to be playable by the konsole kiddies???

Since forever, but it depends on the game. Did you know that the Atari 2600 had a clone of one of those text based Star Trek games? Did you know that the PSone port of Diablo plays exactly like the PC version, only with differing controls. Different does not imply dumbed down.

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[drsquare]

I know console gamers bitch about this too to some extent, but maybe if they stopped buying those fucking games in the first place, they wouldn't be made so often.

Why wouldn't they buy them if they enjoy them? COD4 of Halo 3 on the console are more fun than anything the PC can offer like Crysis or shit like that.

It's only comic book guy PC gamers who whine about keyboards and mice. What exactly do PC FPSes challenge you on other than moving the mouse around really fast? I mean, other than installing hacks and cheats.

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not entirely accurate.

Most game devs, if you ask them, would love to spend more time on fixing bugs and implementing "niche" features like those you mention. As it stands, however, the publisher calls the shots, and when alpha time arrives, screenshots equals money.

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[Kneo24]

I know console gamers bitch about this too to some extent, but maybe if they stopped buying those fucking games in the first place, they wouldn't be made so often.

Why wouldn't they buy them if they enjoy them?

You missed the point. If you, the consumer, is unhappy with how something turns out time after time again, and the company making said product refuses to even acknowledge that there is a problem that needs to be addressed, you do have options to make your voice heard. Voting with your dollars is the simplest method.

COD4 of Halo 3 on the console are more fun than anything the PC can offer like Crysis or shit like that.

COD4 was released on the PC at the same time, or very shortly after. The Halo games? All gonna be on the PC. Halo 1 had more stuff added to the game for the PC port.

Games being ported from console to PC, if done correctly, are better as far as the individual experience goes. Look at Mass Effect. So much more content and higher resolution graphics. The PC can offer more than the console can at this point. Can you easily mod your games on the console (and no I don't mean cheating)? No. Will you ever in the future? Who knows, but certainly not anytime soon. PC gamers do enjoy taking the SDK's and seeing what they can create from them.

It's only comic book guy PC gamers who whine about keyboards and mice. What exactly do PC FPSes challenge you on other than moving the mouse around really fast? I mean, other than installing hacks and cheats.

And it's the console fanboys who seem to think that somehow mouse and keyboard setups aren't better.

Look, games that are generally not being made for the console first, tend to be harder because the AI is better. The AI needs to be dumbed down on console versions because the controller setup isn't nearly as fast or accurate than the mouse and keyboard setup. It's also why there's a delayed autoaim feature on console versions. This is exactly the reason why FPS's getting ported from console to PC are generally ridiculously easy. They don't ramp up the AI in some fashion. They don't even bother to add more things to shoot at.

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[drsquare]

Games are released later on the PC because the market's so much smaller. I don't see the problem with controller interfaces, guns aren't supposed to be fast to aim with. I think PC gamers have just got used to running around at 100mph shooting accurately at single-pixel targets twelve times a second. Get real.

I think PC gamers like you are just sore that you're flagship genre, the FPS, is now bigger on consoles, so all you're left with really is poopsocking MMOs, and maybe an RTS every ten years or so.

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[biovoid]

And since when have PC games NOT had to be dramatically dumbed down in order to be playable by the konsole kiddies???

We're talking about Diablo here, yeah?

The most dumbed-down action RPG of all time.

Re:Why isn't this a console title?

[Kneo24]

Games are released later on the PC because the market's so much smaller.

That's a perceived notion created by asshats who don't know how to program their games. The market is there, and it's huge. We just don't want to be ripped-off with shitty games. But apparently you console kiddies eat that stuff up. If you're making a crappy game, it should be priced accordingly from the time it's released to the public.

I don't see the problem with controller interfaces...

Every person who has said this has been a person who hasn't tried playing both console games and PC games. You don't see the problem because you're not educated enough about the problem.

guns aren't supposed to be fast to aim with. I think PC gamers have just got used to running around at 100mph shooting accurately at single-pixel targets twelve times a second.

If that really was the case, then why add that nifty little delayed auto-aim feature in every single FPS console game? Why do you think they do that? I'll give you a hint, it's because they realize the limitations of the controller, and therefore try to make up for it with that. They want to try and simulate fast paced action and accuracy as much as possible.

I think PC gamers like you are just sore that you're flagship genre, the FPS, is now bigger on consoles, so all you're left with really is poopsocking MMOs, and maybe an RTS every ten years or so.

We're not really sore about anything, we're just tired of hearing the same shit every fucking cycle from nincompoops who believe that somehow they have amazing insight. It's even more annoying when the same fucking bullshit comes from studio heads who clearly have had their head up their ass for far too long.

Want to bash PC gaming? Try doing so intelligently.

Nothin' better!

[freaker_TuC]

There is nothing better .. than a second victory ..

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

uhhh

[Chutulu]

"Stay a while and listen..."

I think i've heard that a million times....

Re:uhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Another visitor! Stay a while - stay forever!

Wrong game?

Play it soon

[wildzeke]

I hear that Limbo of the Lost 2 is going to predominately feature Diablo 3 content.

Is it just me...

[superash]

...or does the game look very much Warcraft like? Not that I am complaining , I loved the first two and the third looks much much better. Just that I hope I don't have to upgrade my grphics card to play this. Diablo 1 & 2 were not graphics intensive even though it had pretty nice stuff.

Re:Is it just me...

[Machtyn]

A couple of things I noticed with the graphics and physics engine in the game. At the beginning, it showed the barbarian walking through the water causing ripples to expand outward. (Still gimmicky looking to me, but they are getting better at it. That's hard stuff to do for a PPU.) However, at the end, with the big boss battle, characters are running through the pool of water and no ripples. You can't even tell they are in or on top of the water.

Now, certainly, they are probably using the best $600-$1000 card from nVidia or ATI, but I think the graphics will scale down nicely for the budget $50-$150 card crowd. And, Blizzard knows its target audience, they know some of them will likely own the Win Vista PC that comes with the nVidia 6100 onboard POCrap chipset that has no WinXP drivers and is an underpowered non-Aero GPU.

Re:Is it just me...

[CronoCloud]

Ripple water in a Diablo game? Gee, that showed up in Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance (a PS2 Diablo clone) back in 2002! In fact, it looks like a prettier version of a Snowblind Engine game, except for the fixed camera. Take a look at these videos: http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/baldursgatedarkalliance/media.html?mode=all/

Early alpha review up

[TheGreatOrangePeel]

to quote the review for the alpha,

Clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick clickclick...

Re:Early alpha review up

[M0ralGray]

I'm hoping the collector's edition comes with a case of mice.

Re:Early alpha review up

[ubergoober]

My wife left after my foray into Diablo 2. Didn't notice her leave, but the note she left behind mentioned something about this "incessent clicking" you reference.

Re:Early alpha review up

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just performing the clicking, it's knowing when to perform then clicking.

Re:Early alpha review up

[melikamp]

You guys are thinking Diablo I, before the first auto-clicker came around.

Lots of empty pages?

[Yvan256]

Is someone still uploading the content to the web server or something? Most pages are empty (the pages are there, but no content)...

I want to know what are the Mac requirements.

Re:Lots of empty pages?

[mattgoldey]

On the FAQ page, they say that the system requirements will announced at a later date.

Re:Lots of empty pages?

[Jesus_666]

"This product launch is brought to you by Blizzard and Mozilla"...

System Requirements?

[Qbertino]

Does anyone know the system requirements? More specifically: Will it run fine with my current generation Mac Mini? I know this is Blizzard, a really good game publisher, so the answer is likely to be "Yes.", however, I'd like some details. Anyone?

Re:System Requirements?

[mattgoldey]

On the FAQ page, they say that the system requirements will announced later.

Re:System Requirements?

[TheSpoom]

System Requirements: You totally can't run it.

Re:System Requirements?

[Kneo24]

It honestly don't look too much more advanced than Titan's Quest. I'm willing to bet money that at the very least, they'll make this game compatible with DirectX 8 users.

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[christurkel]

Its fun, mindless hack and slash adventure. It's nice to take a break, sometimes.

Blizzard

[Coraon]

You know I think this is one of the few game companies out there that actually get it. All there modern games have been a hit and I think thats because they produce quality first: the game has to have a good plot, it has to have replay and it has to be pretty, and if it doesn't meet those rules it doesn't get made. As someone who only buys good quality games, I know when its a blizzard game its worth me shelling out the $40+ for it.

Re:Blizzard

[chromatic]

... the game has to have a good plot...

Which game was that, Blizzard v. Bnetd?

Absolute evil can never be killed

[sheetsda]

... until all the money has been completely milked out of it.

Whoa...not until they finish StarCraft 2

[txmadman]

I assume they have enough guys to do both of these...StarCraft 2 was in line first and needs to be delivered first. It's about time...

Re:Whoa...not until they finish StarCraft 2

[larry bagina]

Blizzard North (formerly Condor) develops the diablo franchise. Blizzard develops the warcraft/starcraft franchises.

Re:Whoa...not until they finish StarCraft 2

[Cochonou]

I thought Blizzard North had been closed. Which raises the question, is the regular Blizzard up to the task to make a new Diablo faithful to its ancestors, if the original developers have moved onto other companies ?

Re:Whoa...not until they finish StarCraft 2

[Trolan]

They absorbed Blizzard North into their Irvine offices a couple years ago. It doesn't exist as a separate entity anymore.

They have enough people to manage all of their projects. Previous to this announcement they had hinted at this with statements about their "Team 3." So right now they have one team on WoW xpacks, one on SC2 (and the xpack which we know will come) and one on D3.

These next 12 months should be interesting, with WotLK and SC2 likely to both land in that window.

Re:Whoa...not until they finish StarCraft 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Blizzard North is no more.

Re:Whoa...not until they finish StarCraft 2

[Kneo24]

The original developers created Hellgate: London, and that game was terrible. It's clearly not the developers who made the Diablo series what it, it's Blizzard, as a whole.

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually derive great pleasure from beating the living hell out of demons and tourists.

Surprised this is happening

[mattgoldey]

Blizzard took so many elements from the Diablo games and incorporated them into World of Warcraft that I'm surprised that this is happening. Excited, but still surprised.

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[-noefordeg-]

Because we all know that Diablo and Diablo 2 were just graphics and lots of zombies =/

The item generation (Slot machine principle), character templates and development, and fast paced gameplay was Diablo 1 & 2. Blizzard manage to include everything which makes a game fun in Diablo 1 & 2, not only for you, but for those playing with a group of friends too.

With patches changing the game dynamics of Diablo 2, the game provided us with several years of experimenting with different character templates.

Seems to me that you either haven't played Diablo games or "just don't get it" :)

But who cares?!
Diablo 3 is coming!!! Hell YEAH!

PS.
This coming from someone who just last month, played Diablo 2 on his MacBook at the airport. Not a single game has kept me coming back for more like the way Diablo 2 has =)

I'm disappointed...

[el_senator]

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

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[rpillala]

You should be right, but yet there is something about Diablo's art direction and sound direction that draws me back.

There's room for both clickfest games and more sophisticated games. I can't think, offhand, of any computer game with deep characters that were interesting to interact with. Maybe you can suggest something? The closest I've seen is probably Planescape: Torment.

New diablo 2 patch

[gbjbaanb]

Just browsing, and look what I found:

- Patch 1.12

          Downloadable Installer Support

- If all required Diablo 2 '.MPQ' files are installed on the
    hard drive, the game will no longer require the CD to play.

      For users that originally performed a 'Full Installation'
      and wish to run without the CD, all '.MPQ' files should
      be copied from the Diablo 2 CDs to the Diablo 2 directory.
      Most users will only need to copy D2Music.mpq from the
      Diablo 2 Play CD and/or D2xMusic.mpq from the Lord of
      Destruction CD. Mac users will need to copy these music
      files and rename them to 'Diablo II Music' and
      'Diablo II Expansion Music' respectively.

      Anyone who did not perform a 'Full Installation' will need
      to re-install from CD again to ultimately play without the CD.
      In this case, a 'Full Installation' is required, followed by file
      copy step noted above.

nice of them to think about letting us play these old games like this.

Re:New diablo 2 patch

[Jugalator]

I read Blizzard is planning digital purchases / download of Diablo II as well, and I guess that patch was in that case a precursor for that (you won't have any CD's to insert in the first place).

But yes, that's a nice touch for other players too.

Re:New diablo 2 patch

[Surt]

The slightly amusing part of that is that it was always true (you just needed to copy the music mpqs to get away from needing the disk in the drive).

Re:New diablo 2 patch

[Anonymous Coward]

Ditto the latest Starcraft patch. In the age of draconian DRM and paranoia, it's nice that at least one company can let go of at least the older games.

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[AlexMax2742]

Get off your high horse. The market has room for both intellectual RPG's and mindless hack n' slashes.

Not that I particularly care about Diablo 3, since I wasn't a fan of the first two, but this exact attitude is why the 'mindless shoot-em-up' genre, one I'm a huge fan of, is all but dead.

Sooooooooooul Calibur!

[Anonymous Coward]

" Yet for those who battled the Prime Evils directly, the memory fades slowly and the wounds of the soul still burn."

"..the soul still burn."

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[Hells]

Well, if it's like D2, it will be more fun to play than watch.

Need a new mouse.

[ThePhilips]

Finally!

I do not like my actual mouse - but sadly it still works somehow. Coming up with the reason to buy a new mouse is quite hard.

But Diabolo is for rescue!!!

The game is notoriously known for its capability of rendering mice dysfunctional by wearing down left button very very quickly. My friend playing thru Diabolo I & II (with expansions) went thru 5(!) left mouse buttons (he was replacing only button mechanics itself) and one right mouse button.

Diabolo III - Banzaii!!

4 years too late?

[_KiTA_]

Am I the only one who thinks this is quite a few years too late?

I mean, yeah, it might be OK, but... I donno. The hype for this built up and waned all on it's own years ago, before it even existed. Seems to me they should have started work ont his 1-2 years after Lord of Destruction came out.

Also, isn't the entire Diablo 1 and 2 staff "seeking success elsewhere" now?

Re:4 years too late?

[icegreentea]

The D2 team went and made Hellgate. Didn't pan out as they expected. It might seem a bit late... but look at how long SC2 took. Sure, starcraft had Korea to keep it going, but D2 still has its legion of nostalgic fans.

Re:4 years too late?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, nearly the entire staff went and created Hellgate: London, essentially Diablo III a year ago. It is extremely similiar in the way classes and skills are organized, as well as gameplay, with the addition of being a decent first person point of view game.

And gameplay on their servers is free.

Re:4 years too late?

[Jellybob]

Yeah, Hellgate: London wasn't a particularly great game, which really annoyed me since I bought it on release after hearing that it was done by the same team that worked on Diablo.

Sadly the game mechanics were a bit dull, although not broken as such, and the storyline more or less non-existant. It has so much potential though, with an interesting mix of classes, and randomly generated maps to keep things interesting.

I also like that they made multiplayer more or less a free MMO, but I've yet to be able to login to any of their servers, with them downloading what appears to be a patch, and then telling me to go to the website and download a patch. Every time I've tried I ended up in an infinite loop.

Re:4 years too late?

[marcovje]

I worry about that. At least Hellgate was random though still too linear. This looks like static levels.

It looks mighty sharp, but gameplay was what it is about, and the "all-mouse" angle of the walktrough doesn't make me happy

Re:4 years too late?

[Jellybob]

I'd much rather have well designed static levels, then a bunch of identical blocks stuck together in slightly different orders.

I wouldn't have even minded so much if the above ground levels had been better designed - I live in London, and work around the area the begining of the game is meant to be based in, and they did an awful job of recreating it.

Re:4 years too late?

[marcovje]

Yes, the city fronts are way too static, and if you get up close you notice they are pretty onedimensional.

Dear lord, not Deckard Cain

[FlyingSquidStudios]

I love the Diablo series, but Deckard Cain is one of the most annoying game characters, especially his fakey accent.

Re:Dear lord, not Deckard Cain

[Psychor]

I get the feeling from the write up that describes Deckard Cain as one of the first victims that there's a good chance he might be playing a major villain in Diablo 3 instead of helping the player. We can only hope that the opportunity will be there to smash his face in with some kind of large mace, ending the torment of his fake Sean Connery accent.

Re:Dear lord, not Deckard Cain

[Greymoon]

Sean Fakery

Re:Dear lord, not Deckard Cain

[FlyingSquidStudios]

I totally wanted to leave him in that stupid cage crying, "help!" Damn Blizzard for not letting me finish the game without him.

Re:Dear lord, not Deckard Cain

[DeeQ]

Common you can tell who ever did his voice was just trying to sound like Sean Connery. It makes me laugh every time i hear him.

Re:Dear lord, not Deckard Cain

[IHateEverybody]

It's pretty clear from the demo on the website that Cain just got himself trapped again and that one of your early missions will be to rescue him. It also looks like he'll be grumpier than ever.

Quick!

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy Logitech stocks now! ;)

Unreal3

[Anonymous Coward]

The game is using a heavily modified Unreal3 engine. It is console bound, but I won't go into details about that. Also, the game is still going to have the fast action all the older games have. It is going to be fun and is totally different than WoW. As it always was and always will be.

Re:Unreal3

[CronoCloud]

Unreal engine? Looks like it was Snowblind engine inspired too. It had better be console bound.

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[pooh666]

Yeah, it isn't a spectator game at all. And it isn't always easy to just slash you way through either, otherwise no one would ever die. It is the only game besides Unreal Tournament xxxx that kept me going a long time.

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[Draek]

You're essentially arguing that Unreal Tournament should be more like Half-Life 2. And the result of *THAT* was UT3's single-player campaign, which achieved a level of suckiness never before seen in the world of gaming.

So no, you're not the only one who finds these kinds of games to be boring, but that just means this game is not for you. Go and play a story- and character-driven RPG if you like (I'd recommend Baldur's Gate 2), but leave the hack-n-slash alone, 'kay?

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The other rumor is death knights pre-wrath.

[plasmacutter]

After reading up on death knights, and hearing theyre releasing them pre-xpack, all I can say is.. im glad they want to euthenize the game early, so I dont have to buy it.

Kinda looks like NWN

[Jesus_666]

When I looked at those screenshots my first thought was: "Damn, this looks like Neverwinter Nights with a new engine."

Of course if it played like NWN with a new engine I'd be all over it. I doubt it, though.

Oh no, not again

[Anonymous Coward]

there goes my job...

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Cynical part of myself: Diablo III? How fucking original!

Fanboy part of myself: ZOMFG! Get me new pants!

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[Ren.Tamek]

You'd be surprised how much times have not changed. I think there will always be a big market out there for games that are enjoyable immediately, from the moment you sit down at your computer.

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[Spikeles]

MASSIVE DAMAGE

Massive damage eh? Will there be real time weapon change and actual historical battles that take place in japan with giant enemy crabs that you flip over?

click lickettty, click, click-ck-ck-clickketty cli

[multi-flavor-geek]

Get those mouse fingers ready! This might even be a good time to invest in a pile of expendable mice as there is going to be a run on them with in a week of the game coming out.

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[yanos]

People are more interested in deep characters...

Lately I've been enjoying burst of gaming via rockband, GH, wii fit, the virtual console, some puzzle game like zack & wiki... etc. Games with deep characters and complex storyline are not always what I'm looking for. Bring on the mindless mouse clicking!

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[Koiu Lpoi]

Am I the only one who finds this game to be boring

The game isn't out yet. It's not even close. Good job, you declared it boring from screenshots that can hardly be called "alpha". Judging a book by it's cover is fine, amirite?

Times have changed. People are more interested in deep characters

That's why the Gauntlet series has been running companies out of business and has no clones in the market, right?

There's still something to be said for an adrenaline-rush clickfest. People (lots of people) find this type of game fun, and will just end up cliking through the dialogue because they just don't care. Remember, you're not the only one who plays videogames, and, by the sound of it, you'd have a much better time playing an interactive movie like Metal Gear Solid.

Let the duping begin!!!

[fitten]

I hope they've learned a bit over time. Should be a good game, though.

LOTL2

[Jesus_666]

See, now that's a game I'm looking forward to!

Don't worry...

[bashibazouk]

In 18 months when this finally ships you will be ready to upgrade anyway.

Re:Don't worry...

[joshtheitguy]

18 months until the release? Maybe not, I'm thinking 18 months until the first set of delays.

Re:Don't worry...

[Evanisincontrol]

I'm ok with that. Blizzard doesn't (necessarily) have a reputation for fast, on-time releases; instead, they have a reputation for good releases. I'd much rather wait for two years for a rock solid game (as Blizzard has always provided us in the past) than get it in one year and have it be a waste of money.

Re:Don't worry...

[ottothecow]

considering the gameplay demo...I would say they have been working on this for a long time already

Re:Don't worry...

[wernercd]

Apparently we must not be... We are talking about the Blizzard that has made industry top rated, beyond top selling games. Maybe you've heard of Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft. Which Blizzard are you talking about?

Re:Don't worry...

[thanatos_x]

He might be referring to the fact that blizzard doesn't seem to do terribly well on the console side; ghost got canceled, and I haven't heard anywhere close to the same kind of praise for things like lost vikings as for SC, WC and Diablo.

The only PC game they botched was a WC spinoff, lord of the clans (or something), which was never actually released since they couldn't make it nearly perfect.

In general blizzard has the track record of pixar. Valve, Nintendo, and Square Enix release good games, but every PC game Blizzard releases is pretty much game of the year material. Their expansion packs are game of the year material.

Re:Don't worry...

[Grimbleton]

I'm talking about the Blizzard whose games are unplayable at release for a good week or three until they patch the biggest of the worst bugs.

Re:Don't worry...

[Dog-Cow]

IOW, a different Blizzard than the one in the article.

Re:Don't worry...

[holywarrior21c]

I'd much rather wait for two years for a rock solid game (as Blizzard has always provided us in the past) than get it in one year and have it be a waste of money.

Not only that, it is worth paying $$$ for the game too. I bought starcraft and broodwar expansion cd 3 times because one time i played for 2yrs and quit and gave it away and came back playing it for another year, year later and because i was seriously getting addicted, once again i threw it away and onl six month later i've done it again. and now finally i am free of starcraft for at least 3yrs on my computer. (but being the korean at all american white bread ivy league university, whenever i'm @ lan party, i rule one on 3) I have similar experience with Diablo as well. man do i miss playin it! clicky click click!!/nanosec

Re:Don't worry...

[afidel]

Yeah pretty much this. If you ever played D1, D2, D2 LOD, WoW, etc during the first month or two you'd know how true this is. They make good games, but there's usually a ton of relatively serious bugs with the 1.0 patch and often a couple unbalanced gameplay areas. To their credit they do address they fairly quickly and end up with a freaking fantastic product, but I don't know of a single Blizzard release that was anywhere near perfect at 1.0

Re:Don't worry...

[Anonymous Coward]

The fanboys are out in force today. Dumbfucks.

Re:Don't worry...

[CogDissident]

Obviously, you didn't actually follow the WoW or WC3 releases. Their servers were overloaded due to popularity, but there wern't many technical bugs on the user-end.

Making reality again

[allcoolnameswheretak]

I remember reading somewhere that maybe we don't live in a universe that has made us, but rather, the universe is made up by minds as we go. The day before I read about StarCraft II coming out, I was thinking how cool it would be if Blizzard would finally make a sequel to StarCraft. I swear to god, yesterday I was wondering what the next installment of Diablo would look like. This is creeping me out.

Multiplayer

[tepples]

I too have both a mouse and keyboard plugged into my PS3, but sadly console developers seems stuck in the 80s and, with a few exceptions, believe people actually PREFER the standard controller in games like FPSes.

How many keyboards and how many mice do you think people can comfortably plug into one console? Not all families have the money for four consoles and four TVs, or for four PCs and four monitors.

They have millions-of-dollar budgets, but can't get a basic thing like keyboard and mouse support, or even swapping left/right stick, into the game.

It takes a multi-million-dollar budget to make an AAA console game. But it takes a multi-billion-dollar budget to make an AAA console game that require a keyboard and mouse. This is the case because none of the three console makers will grant their digital signature to a title that requires a keyboard and mouse, so you'd have to develop and market your own console to play it on.

Re:Multiplayer

[eddy]

Dear Idiot child,

No one has said that console games should REQUIRE keyboard and mouse, we're saying that they should SUPPORT it, as an option as favoured as the regular controller(s).

Please stop being dumb.

Re:Multiplayer

[ToasterMonkey]

How many keyboards and how many mice do you think people can comfortably plug into one console? Not all families have the money for four consoles and four TVs, or for four PCs and four monitors.

Between the 2-4 USB ports and Bluetooth? I would guess at _least_ one keyboard and one mouse?
Are you suggesting that split-screen modes would require all players to use the same controller? Well, they wouldn't. Just as everyone doesn't need a wheel to play split-screen racing games. Helloooooooo?

WTF, 'supporting' K&M doesn't mean 'require them in any and all circumstances'.

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[oogoliegoogolie]

Whatcha talking about man? It looks like a hoot, and orders of magnitude more fun than the cloned FPS games that have been coming out lately, especially on the consoles.

Hell Gate

[DigiShaman]

Well actually, Hell Gate was the "unofficial" Diablo 3. Basically, it was a FPS that takes place in the future where magic meets technologies and the combination thereof. An awsome concept, except EA botched the whole development. Anyone who's played it will tell you how bad the performance is, level detail feels redundant, and over all "alpha-ish". Sad too, because I really wanted to like this game.

NATIVE Linux port.

[antdude]

We want NATIVE Linux port. No WINE!

Re:NATIVE Linux port.

[dotancohen]

We want NATIVE Linux port. No WINE!

Write to them. Tell them that.

Re:NATIVE Linux port.

[CastrTroy]

How is using the WINE API different from using any other API, like OpenGL? If the library exists, and they ensure they only use the parts of WINE that work, then what's the actual downside of using WINE?

Re:NATIVE Linux port.

[antdude]

I did a while ago. :P

Re:NATIVE Linux port.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, port is wine, it's just been fortified.

Re:NATIVE Linux port.

[feld]

Nothing. They are still conviced that WINE is an emulator and you'd lose performance by compiling against winelibs.

Wake up SHEEPLE! It's just a library that does the dirty work!

Re:NATIVE Linux port.

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to purchase and own a valid Windows Operating System license from Microsoft in order to use the non-free libararies required to run WoW and similar DirectX games.

That would be one important drawback.

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[Firehed]

I assume you're still running Tiger? I tried to install D2 on my MBP yesterday since the splash screen hadn't yet been fully revealed but got my hellish blood pumping a bit, only to find out that D2 is a classic app and Leopard hates classic (and I no longer have any easily accessible Windows boxes).

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Differences between Diablo and WOW

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never played Diablo, but wasted many, many hour (days) on WOW. What is the difference between the two? Why whould I want to buy Diablo if I'm burned out on WOW?

Re:Differences between Diablo and WOW

[Totenglocke]

Why whould I want to buy Diablo if I'm burned out on WOW?

You don't have to pay $15 a month for Diablo, so at least that way if you don't play every day you don't feel guilty about the wasted money.

Re:Differences between Diablo and WOW

[justinlee37]

This almost doesn't even justify a response. For christ's sake just read the wikipedia articles and some game review writeups for both titles and answer your own fucking question.

Keyboards on consoles are for text entry

[tepples]

Then explain to me why we can use a keyboard with Opera on the Wii and how we can use a keyboard while playing FF XI on both the Xbox 360 and the PS2.

In each of these cases, it's not required, and more importantly, you're using it for text entry, not controlling your character.

Re:Keyboards on consoles are for text entry

[Yvan256]

I guess you never played FF XI then. It can be played exclusively with the keyboard (on all systems).

Re:Keyboards on consoles are for text entry

[CronoCloud]

You can play the PS2 MMORPG Everquest ONline Adventures Frontiers, entirely with the keyboard.

Re:Keyboards on consoles are for text entry

[IntergalacticWalrus]

Yes, it CAN be used, but it's not required. That was the point.

YEAH!

[Anonymous Coward]

YEAH!!!

what?

[Cyko_01]

You mean they make other games besides WOW?

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

WoW what is WoW? I though Blizzard only had a MMORPG with a arena, warriors and rouges were the only classes that can survive in it. I mean come on they hired Tom Chilton, the game was doomed the day they did it. Gee he has only destroyed every other MMORPG he was involved with.

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, the game is a watered down rogue-like hack & slash with prettier graphics. It's all about grinding to collect the next bigger weapon. It was fun the first couple of times, but this is probably the 12th game of the exact same formula (Diablo, Dungeon Seige, Sacred, Loki, etc)

Of course, the kids seem to be into "grind" these days. Look at the success of WoW.. This game will sell like hotcakes. Click, click, click.

Gimme a game with NetHack's depth of play, and then we're back on track with something!

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[theReal-Hp_Sauce]

Clearly you don't know the Diablo croud... it's all about the itamz!

You kill the monsters to find the items to become powerful. You don't start powerful. You can see in this video (as shown by the fact that a chest drops an entire armour set for the barbarion) that the characters and their skills are all set very high to show off the skills, rather then the tediousness of leveling with weak skills and deciding which ones to poor points into.

-hps

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[Jugalator]

Am I the only one who finds this game to be boring, even by its demo videos? Fancy graphics and physics engine aside, it is essentially Lots Of Zombies + MASSIVE DAMAGE. In essence: Lame.

No more lame than a D1 or D2 video? Maybe this isn't your kind of game then. Note that a crappy quality gameplay video won't show the intricaties of character builds though and optimizing item usage for a character role you thought up in your classroom. ;-)

The stuff leading up the gargantuan websites like these:
http://strategy.diabloii.net/

That's what I think made especially Diablo II so much fun. The skilled players could think up their own limits in which items to use, and so on. Not to mention hardcore mode which I assume will be in Diablo III.

Boss Fight Video from Gametrailers.com

[Asomatous]

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/234936.html?playlist=featured

But...I need second one

[sznupi]

Because Diablo2 still has a firm graps on the one I rent from it currently.

I guess that means I need to go looking for some big red crystals in real life...preferably in Russia O_o

Seriously, I'm not sure if I want D3 to come out ASAP or...a long time from now. My heart will be torn if I'll have to choose between 2 & 3...

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[Anonymous Coward]

Boring? Three of my four years of high school say otherwise.

So yes, you are the only one.

I can't wait to get some PWNIES!!!

[KozmoKramer]

I can't wait to get some PWNIES with my new level 80 Amazon!!!!!

Female voice in cinematic teaser...

[TerovThePyro]

Did the female voice in the cinematic teaser sound like Sylvanas (pre WOW/Undead) to anyone else? Soon enough they will be like Pixar - the fat/less intelligent character is always voiced by the same guy! (Which made for a great set of credits in Cars)

Re:Female voice in cinematic teaser...

[osu-neko]

Did the female voice in the cinematic teaser sound like Sylvanas (pre WOW/Undead) to anyone else? Soon enough they will be like Pixar - the fat/less intelligent character is always voiced by the same guy! (Which made for a great set of credits in Cars)

Um, soon enough? This has been typical of Blizzard games since the 1990's. I recognized most of the voices in StarCraft from Diablo II, or the other way around (I don't remember which came first, but I do remember jokingly referring to each major character in the one game by the name from the other -- e.g. I'd refer to the narrator in Diablo [when you read books in the game] as "Judicator Aldaris"). I don't remember any Blizzard game where I didn't instantly recognize the voices of nearly all the characters, save the first.

Re:Female voice in cinematic teaser...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it sounded a bit like Lucy Lawless, the chick from Xena.

Doesn't work in OSX with Firefox 3.

[Viewsonic]

You would think they would have tested this out.

I hope this isn't a preview of whats to come for the OSX version of Diablo 3.. Pretty sad.

Re:Doesn't work in OSX with Firefox 3.

[nawcom]

Works fine on mine. GMA 950 for graphics, a nice Dell laptop. Oh, did I mention I'm running Firefox 3 in OS X on this laptop? The point being, that their website works fine with Firefox 3 on OS X. Don't blame the OS.

Re:Doesn't work in OSX with Firefox 3.

[eharvill]

Firefox 3 spikes my processor(s) to 50% (Centrino Duo) under XP and is impossibly slow to watch. Works fine under IE though.

I was expecting a console release

[billtom]

I was expecting Diablo 3, but I actually thought that Blizzard would move it to a console title.

Business-wise, getting some of that juicy console money seems like a no-brainer for Blizzard (or their corporate masters). The *-craft games are somewhat problematic to move to the consoles, but Diablo looks like an excellent candidate: fondly remembered IP, a fallow period so people can't complain too much about gameplay changes, and the action heavy diablo style suits the consoles well.

But no. Windows and Mac, they say. Seems like a missed opportunity to me.

Re:I was expecting a console release

[CronoCloud]

Maybe Blizzard is bitter about Snowblind muscling in on their territory and basically "owning" the console Diablo clone market with games based on their engine. Didn't the gameplay video look very similar to all those snowblind engine games, ripple water and everything? Blizzard's playing catchup now.

Worked fine with FF3 running OSX 10.5.3...

[rootrot]

Looks great...look forward to it on my 17" Pro. Think I'll go reload DII...

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[TheRaven64]

If you used the OS X installer, D2 is a Carbon app - it still has to run in Rosetta, and the OpenGL mode has been broken on Intel Macs forever, so you need to enable software rendering - but it does work. Or, it did. On some hardware, Apple removed 256-colour mode from the graphics drivers in the last update and so it won't run on these.

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got to remember something about Blizzard, though. They're always - ALWAYS - way behind the curve, and it doesn't matter to them one bit. They've got a Midas touch which allows them to take any utterly, loathsomely mediocre game and transform it into a goldmine through the magic of colorful, well marketed franchises. That's precisely how and why they're where they're at today.

Blizzard's fortunes weren't built on technically superior software or challenging games, they were built on design, atmosphere, and knowing how to push the typical nerd's buttons when it comes to the Rule of Cool. That's it. People that don't know how to relax and have a good time like us can see through that. That's why we probably complain so much and just as probably don't play many games these days, because let's face it, most people don't enjoy thinking or playing games that facilitate their creativity. Love him or hate him, the average Joe just wants to tickle his brain stem with some bright lights and pretty sounds so he can get his daily adrenaline.

Diablo 3 is going to be par for the course, and I can say this because Blizzard has a track record about as long as I am old. It'll have a feature set that would've been better appreciated in Diablo 2's day, some gimmicky audio-visual shit to make it look 'next-gen' along with some basic Newtonian physics simulation, Warcraft's terminal rainbow cancer (to keep the ADHD generation watching), and a story that could've plausibly been written by a ten year old on fanfiction.net.

It will be loved and cherished by all precisely because of that.

It's finally here!

[IrritableBeing]

*fap* *fap* *fap* *fap*

Sure it'll have single player

[Anonymous Coward]

But as the GP post said (and you completely missed), the game will be too frigging hard on your own.

Paladin helped lots of OTHERS. Not himself so much.

Necromancer weak as shit without tons of critters.

Sorceress too little mana to get rid of Hell difficulty monsters.

All required cooperation to get through. What made it worse was that the bosses insta-kill your helper because they do 8x damage to non players.

The variety of stuff meant you had feck-all chance of collecting a set or something unique but appropriate. Take a look at the low-level stuff: required level 2. But to find anything able to drop it, you've worked up to level 20+.

So you mule.

Single player was nerfed.

Re:Sure it'll have single player

[Anonymous Coward]

Single-player D2 is perfectly doable if you are even slightly competent as a player. You, quite clearly, are not.

And by the way, Paladins are affected by their own auras, so they help themselves just fine. And a Necromancer's "tons of critters" are a function of the Necromancer himself, so using them doesn't even begin to count as not soloing. That's further proof that you didn't know how to play the game. THAT, not some evil specter of nerfing, is the reason you had to find groups to leech off of. That IS what you were doing, and the lies you're going to tell about how you weren't a useless little leech won't even convince yourself, let alone anyone who isn't retarded.

Diablo 3: Angband 0.9

[MilenCent]

It might have (much) better graphics and sound, but Diablo really doesn't do anything that Angband doesn't. And there's even a multiplayer Angband out these days.

I can't help but wonder, were MAngband better known, if Diablo would be as popular.

Re:Diablo 3: Angband 0.9

[HeavensBlade23]

On what planet is *band remotely comparable to a commercial game?

Re:Diablo 3: Angband 0.9

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course Diablo wouldn't be as popular if more people knew about Angband. Out of the 1% of the people who would actually consider playing a game as ugly as Angband, a few of them might even stomach the interface. And out of those people, 1 person might even prefer it to Diablo, which would technically make Diablo less popular.

Re:Diablo 3: Angband 0.9

[nuzak]

> but Diablo really doesn't do anything that Angband doesn't.

This is supposed to be the part where we bow down to your superior taste, right? You, um, go ahead and rock on with Angband. Clearly we're just unworthy mass-market sheeple beneath your attention.

> I can't help but wonder, were MAngband better known, if Diablo would be as popular.

Probably more popular, actually. Halo effect (no, not the game).

coward

[Anonymous Coward]

instead of warming up stupid hack and slay they should resurrect the point and click adventures, such Monkey Island, Day of Tentacle, Sam and Max, Duckman, Full Throttle, the Dig, Loom, Monkey Island or flight of the Amazon Queen...that sure was clicking

 

As a long time Diablo (d1/d2/d2x) fan...

[fgaliegue]

I just hope that Blizzard will NOT go down the route they have chosen to go with the latest d2x updates. That is, keep the best stuff (items) for online gaming.

This, essentially, sucks. What I want to do is play d2x, or d3 when it comes out, on my machine at home, with my characters on my computer, and not have to go online to create a character just to get this and that item, that I cannot get back to my homebrewn character. That just SUCKS.

As a result, I found myself using cheat packs that made such objects accessible to non bnet users. How pitiful is that?

I just DO NOT want to play online. That's not too much asking, is it?

Re:As a long time Diablo (d1/d2/d2x) fan...

[KarmaOverDogma]

I loved diablo II before LOD came out with all their completely lame immunities for the monsters (especially the bosses) such as:

Immune to fire
Immune to cold
Immune to physical
etc.

Then there was my personal favorite:
Immune to magic

I loved playing on my own computer, but I loved playing even more on-line as long as my character could stand a chance going at it solo or with one (1) friend.

Now you need a team that is godly in strength, which usually means hacked items and a fair amount of griefers who could fsuck it up for everyone from time to time unless you played in a private game and one didn't get let in. It really sucked to be ranked 9th on the hard core ladder after months of playing only to be slaughtered by herded, frenzied, maniacal cow bosses in a trap on the cow level, or in a denial of service attack in a game.

I also found that with each new update/patch, every single class got nerfed in some way except for barbarians, who got progressively stronger.

So yeah, I hope they don't repeat some of the mistakes from D2.

OMFG2

[crawly]

I am so horny right now!

Cows!!!!!

[MK_CSGuy]

So, how we'll enter the secret cow level this time? :)

Re:Cows!!!!!

[Yvan256]

Good question. In fact, have they even kept the secret cow level or did they change it for something else or simply dropped it completely?

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[Anonymous Coward]

I heartily agree. I played a demo of the original Diablo, clicked frantically on random monsters for a while, and then when I woke up I deleted the thing again and went off to do something more interesting, like watch paint dry.

Good ol' Deckard..

[Artuir]

"Stay a while and -" "We don't have time for this idle chatter." "Aw, nobody ever listens.."

Cracked me the hell up. When I'm bored at work I'll start spouting off about Horadric cubes and things in that voice. Needless to say, I heart Deckard Cain :D

3

Diablo 3?

[ya really]

Though Blizzard owns the name of the title, isn't the true successor to the Diablo series, Hellgate?

Hellgate: London is a dark fantasy-themed action role-playing game developed by Flagship Studios and released on October 31, 2007. This game is made by the same group of people that created the Diablo series who used to work for Blizzard Entertainment, but had separated from them. wikipedia

Don't get me wrong, Diablo 3 looks promising and I'll probably pick it up at some point, but it seems most of the original staff jumped ship on Blizzard and released their version long before the "official." Sure, it's not in the customary isometric view, but the storyline was very similar along with many of the weapons. Also, nothing like killing demons with not just a sword, but a heavy machine gun as well.

Re:Diablo 3?

[OutLawSuit]

Diablo 3 was already in development well before Roper and them left to create Flagship Studios and Blizzard just took the reins of what they had already started.

It is also quite apparent Diablo would not be what it is today without Blizzard. Bill Roper and Flagship may be the original creators of Diablo but they obviously couldn't capture what made Blizzard games so addictive and fun in Hellgate: London. Yes, some of that had to do with funding but it doesn't excuse many of the flaws in Hellgate: London.

Basically I'd say the credit for Blizzard games transcends above any specific group of people within the company. It is the whole Blizzard way of doing things that ultimately makes their games shine.

Say it isn't so

[J.R. Random]

You mean I didn't really banish Mephisto, Diablo, and Baal to the outer darkness forever?

Dang.

Re:Say it isn't so

[IHateEverybody]

You mean I didn't really banish Mephisto, Diablo, and Baal to the outer darkness forever?

That's just what Tyrael wanted you to think so you'd get them out of the way for him so he could smash the Worldstone, take over, and bring them back as his minions. You were being played all along as you were playing the first games.

Step up to the plate with that cookie.

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'll stick it up your ass, stick it up your ass, stick it up your ass.

(you like double and tripple dips, yea?)

People, Flagship is NOT Blizzard North

[Samuel_Gompers]

Less than 1/4 of the Blizzard North people with credits on "Diablo II" went to Flagship. Also, only TWO people from Blizzard North with a credit on Diablo II are working in Irvine as of the past year! Just a few of the names who did NOT go to Flagship AND are not currently working in Irvine: http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/diablo-ii/credits http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/hellgate-london/credits - Both people named as designers (Hedlund and Sexton) - The artist who created "Diablo" (Okamura) - The original animator of "Diablo" (Haas) - The lead programmer (Seis) - The entire in-game music/audio team (Stone, Petersen, Uelman) - The character artists behind the Paladin, Sorceress, and Barbarian and countless monsters (Johnson, Dashow) - The illustration genius behind the UI art (Boos) - All three level designers (McAuley, Scandizzo, Wilson) Additionally, Bill Roper never had an office at Blizzard North during the making of any of those releases - he moved soon AFTER they were released. The idea that "Well, Hellgate was a flop, so it must have been Blizzard all along that made it..." is unfounded and stupid. The sad reality is that Blizzard North was basically cast to the wind and can never be reformed in any real way.

Re:People, Flagship is NOT Blizzard North

[Surt]

That's all true, except for the part about Bill Roper not having an office at Blizzard North. He definitely did (as much as anyone had an office ... we all shared offices). Not that he contributed a lot beyond ideas to d2 or d2x, but he was definitely physically there. His desk was in one of the offices on the north side of the main hall past the receptionist.

Direct downloads for Macs

[nawcom]

Direct downloads for Mac OS X or anyone who is having issues. (Note to Mac users: Perian is your friend.

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

Re:Direct downloads for Macs

[nawcom]

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

But what about Wirt?

[Minwee]

Between all the Diablos and World of Warcraft we're probably looking at "Wirt's Fifth Leg" by now.

Blizzard still screws their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone still remember the whole BNETD lawsuit thing? Where basically everyone bitched about cheaters and 8 year old kiddies they didn't want to play with? That was the point of BNETD, run your own server with friends, college buddies and/or clans. Seems a number of people said they would never buy from Blizzard again over that. I bet most people forgot that and will start drooling over Diablo 3 and buy it. My how quickly we forget the past sins of a game company.

I'll buy the game, but they won't make any money.

[andi75]

I'll buy the game, but they will not make any money from it because I'll suspend my WoW subscription while I play Diablo 3...

Re:I'll buy the game, but they won't make any mone

[jimmyhat3939]

Watch out! Those gold farmers may get way ahead of you on WoW. Best either to play both or pay someone in a foreign country to play WoW for you while you're away.

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[nuzak]

People are more interested in deep characters that actually react to their actions and are interesting to interact with

Ten million World of Warcraft players say you're wrong.

madly clicking the mouse in all directions should not be considered fun

Yet it is to many people. Do you really think your other games are in some way more meaningful in an even slightly bigger picture, let alone the grand scheme of things?

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[Macgrrl]

You are obviously not te target market for this product - the whole point of Diablo is to mindless slay everythign in sight then go looking for more...

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[brkello]

Just because you don't like this game, it doesn't mean "Times have changed". Really, what people are you talking about? There are plenty of people out there who are going to buy and enjoy the game (myself included). Please don't tell other people what games they should enjoy.

Stop with the Linux port whines

[SupremoMan]

Blizzard is a company. Companies exist to make money. If making a Linux port and supporting it doesn't make them money, why should they do it? I know you guys think you are all very important, and the corporations of the world should do as you please, but you are getting ahead of yourself.

Re:Stop with the Linux port whines

[marco.antonio.costa]

Hey, you're totally right. But what if a GNU/Linux port means some extra 5,000 copies sold? That's 250k. Might be worth having a little trouble to get it to run on Wine with some detailed instructions posted on their website to help.

But of course, I'm sure there are more then 5000 gamers out there using Lignux.

Heck, I think even ppl who don't even love playing games might buy it, just for the novelty. But that might be wishful thinking. ;-)

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[regular_gonzalez]

How many "deep", character-driven games can you name that are still played by over 50,000 people online even 2 years after their release, let alone 8? Don't believe me? Load up Diablo 2 and log onto battle.net, it tells you exactly how many people are online playing Diablo 2: LoD (not counting those playing Diablo 2 vanilla or playing it offline).

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[way2slo]

Agree. Hack-n-slash adventures have their place and the Diablo series is the best of them. Keep it simple and fun, Blizzard!

D2 was a master stroke. I hope they can keep the same balance and gameplay. Not sure what to think about the apparent lack of a potion belt. *crosses fingers*

If they change one thing between D2 and D3, I wish it would be the Unique Items. There were a lot of worthless Uniques and Set Items. It was the same in D1. You play and play and finally get a unique drop only to be let down because it's really not that good. In both games you could get magic items better than the uniques, and much easier. Granted, uniques are better in D2 than D1, but I wish they would keep going and make them better still. You know, really make them stand out from the magic items. Make all of them very powerful artifacts.

DO NOT TAKE MY JUSTIFICATION FOR UBER GAMING RIG

[AutumnLeaf]

I would need half the computer I have now to play games on Linux. I built this uber-rig to play games on Windows damn it! If all game developers magically supported Linux tomorrow, PC sales would drop for 18mos as it would take that long for game developers to use the performance-budget Linux would give back to them. That means I couldn't buy new toys for about three years.

Shhhhhhhhhhhh.

Re:Astonishingly boring?

[geekoid]

"Times have changed. "
Should be :
"I have changed. "

There are people who lick hack and slash now and again.
The real problem only arises if this in any way slows down the Star Craft development.

Writing to Blizzard suggestions forum

[marco.antonio.costa]

Guys, I wrote to Blizz begging for GNU/Linux port for D3 and they said they can't take such suggestions legally by mail. Ya ya, I know. :o)

So lets all write to them on that forum, flood it, lets show some hands! Someone has already posted there suggesting a Wine-focused solution. Whether you are for that or native, make sure to write!

URL: http://www.battle.net/forums/board.aspx?fn=suggestions

Forwaaaard!! :P

asd

[diego.viola]

I wrote to them and this is their answer on the Linux port.

I'm not buying and supporting/recommending any of their games until they support Linux.

--

Hello ,

Thank you for contacting Technical Support. Please be advised, none of our game clients are supported nor tested under the Linux Operating system. I would recommend posting on our suggestions forums regarding the possibility of creating our game clients for the Linux Operating system as well as Mac/Windows.

Blizzard is lucky to have fans who take the time to contribute new game ideas and suggestions for improving our products. While we value the feedback and perspective our customers offer, we are legally restricted from accepting such propositions via email. I highly encourage you to log on to our Suggestions Forum at http://www.battle.net/forums/board.aspx?ForumName=suggestions and post your thoughts there.

This forum provides a valuable opportunity for Blizzard staff members to collect feedback from those who know our games best. While I cannot guarantee you will receive a response, I can assure you the Forum is regularly read and the suggestions posted there do make an impact on our game designs.

Technical Support does not have any additional information other then what is released on our website. Any information regarding our upcoming games, can be found at the following website:

StarCraft II: http://www.starcraft2.com/
Diablo III: http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/
Wraith of the Lich King: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/

If you have any Technical Issues, feel free to give me an e-mail.

Best Regards,

Kenneth
Blizzard Entertainment
Technical Support
http://www.blizzard.com/support

Still.

[AndrewGOO9]

I doubt it will come to the console, but all the same, I'm excited for it.