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Diablo III coming May 15
- H_E_Pennypacker 15y agosign of beta?
- fredoliveira 15y agoA beta has been running for a few months already (edit: since September 2011). You can sign-up for it (although I assume it is way too late for that now) on your battle.net settings page.
- TheCapn 15y agoI think he's ramblin' off on a joke regarding how reddit.com/r/diablo took every single ounce of change in regards to Diablo as a "sign of the beta" or more recently "sign of release date". If twitter of any blizz guy was updated? SIgn of the beta. New picture on the website? Sign of the beta. A sneeze came from 4th floor blizzard HQ? Sign of the beta.
- arien 15y agoBetas (open, and closed too, to a degree) these days seem more like, "let's subtly have people try our product for free, get hooked and generate buzz while at it". It's the same as a free trial (although calling it like this has less positive response, it seems). Just another marketing stunt, long gone are the days where beta was used strictly for testing. On the Web 2.0 environment, who started this? Was it Google with Gmail, or was there something else before? Also, lately, at least in the MMO scene, going gold doesn't mean that the game is polished and ready for release, it just means that you're ready to charge customers.
- Darkstar 15y agoWhile I would normally agree with you, Blizzard games have always had polish. They do continue to balance the game for years afterwards but you rarely find bugs that would make you say it wasn't ready for prime time.
- arien 15y agoWoW had some glaring bugs when it came out. Of course, the start of the game is always better, because it has received a lot more attention (it's crucial to get players hooked in) and because it has received a lot more testing (how many testers are willing to go all the way to max level? Way less than the ones who just check out the first few). Starcraft II was better in that regard. But I'm not targeting Blizzard specifically, just MMO companies in general. All the releases from the past few years all went the same way.
- TheCapn 15y agoYou're right and you're wrong. Blizzard DOES use the beta for hype. With SC2 they gave beta keys to preorders to help generate revenue and interest prior to launch. Not a lot of participants actually know the reason for a beta and actually use it as an excuse to play the game early but Blizzard already knows this. Blizzard's job of releasing a public/invite beta is to test: A) How the game functions on the boat-load of machine configurations available. When you sign up for beta invite on battle.net you need to create a "profile" of yourself by uploading your PC specs. Blizzard has always provided games that can run on a low end machine with features and graphical tweaks that still allow it to look good on a new machine. For me SC2 had to run on low/medium on my 2 year old laptop but with my new PC it runs on Ultra with great effects! B) Network stability. B.net2.0 is rather new and they need to test the matching functionality as well as load test the servers for every reason under the sun. Having willing participants allows them to hit all these goals while still generating the hype.
- arien 15y agoAgain, it's not just Blizzard I'm talking about. Every single MMO company since a few years ago is going this way. Network stability is mostly tested on specific moments like stress test weekends or at the end of a beta, when they let everyone in to see how far they can push their hardware. Of couse this and general behaviour in various hardware configurations need to be tested. But it's not the ultimate point of a beta anymore, at least not in the later stages. I can see it all the time, players just want to get into a beta to see if they like a game before they pay for it, rather than to help make it better.
- gte910h 15y agoI have tried a Blizzard beta before, they have lots of nice error reporting functionality which I reported several bugs on I don't know how you expect for them to get good data on what people do to accurately test unless they do a large scale beta to test it
- kahawe 15y agoAre there any news on bringing it to consoles? Wikipedia[0] just says they are probably still working on it but there are no confirmations one way or the other... [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_3#Console_development http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_3#Console_development
- maerek 15y agoAfter my roommates pre-ordering it for my Christmas gift back in _2010_, glad to see this thing is finally launching.
- Jimmie 15y ago"Online Only" sucks. No LAN and no mods make me a sad boy.
- harph 15y agoThis. I will not be buying this game, because I don't want to support this model.
- uriloran 15y agoYes, I think you're right. It's better not to support it and it will be good for our productivity, too.
- dkersten 15y agoI was looking forward to Diablo 3 until I heard I needed to be online to play the single player. I generally dislike multiplayer in games and only really play single player games. I don't have much interest in multiplayer games at all really - I find other players ruin my experience and wreak the immersion. The only games I like to play multiplayer now are Minecraft and Terraria. I do occasionally play first person shooters multiplayer, but its fairly rare. In fact, the last few times it was two player split-screen modern warfare with someone who was sitting beside me. So it should be obvious that I have nothing to gain from requiring a constant internet connection. I saw somewhere that Blizzard were saying they are requiring this so you can migrate characters between single and multiplayer without the risk of players cheating - this is just not a use case for me at all because I will never migrate my single player character to multiplayer. I'd much rather have an option to make a single player only character that doesn't require constant internet. So besides not wanting or needing that feature, why else do I not want to be forced to be online all the time? I don't usually play games on a laptop while traveling, so that doesn't apply to me, but while I do have reasonably fast internet, over the past year I have had random disconnections (mostly due to issues with wifi, including wireless adapter breaking and wireless interference) and the occasional outage. Usually when my internet isn't working, since I use it for work, I will fire up a game for a little while until the internet is working again or until I feel like fixing it. I've already been bitten by steam a few times so I now default to leaving it in offline mode, only going online when I want to check for updates or buy/install a game. In the past three months, I've been irritated more than a handful times that I couldn't play certain games because I didn't have an internet connection for whatever reason. While this alone wouldn't put me off buying a game, coupled with my overall distaste for multiplayer, I don't see why I should have to pay (in frustration) for being online when I play a single player game. So, for those reasons, I will never buy Diablo 3, even though I was looking forward to it.
- thetron 15y agoI am super excited for this, but a little disappointed that Blizzard apparently doesn't understand exchange rates. The Australian dollar is currently worth (marginally) more than the US Dollar, and yet the game costs an extra $20 here. I don't understand how this is justifiable.
- jeremymcanally 15y agoOh, they're fiendish indeed. They're offering the game for free if you sign up for a year of WoW. That's just mean. I managed to abstain from that, but I did pre-buy and pre-load the game. I was just so excited they had Mac support (which, last I'd heard, was sort of up in the air I thought).
- sathyabhat 15y agoThat's been around since Blizzcon 2011.
- Shivetya 15y agoUnfortunately awhile back when I looked at that option it requires that they hold you CC info on file for the full year, you cannot prepay it nor use another method. One of the little gotchas for those who do not like leaving the CC with vendors or choose one time pay options.
- HardyLeung 15y agoVery tempted, but I resisted!
- getsat 15y agoEvery Blizzard game released in the last 17 years has been released on PC and Mac at the exact same time (as far as I can recall).
- xenophanes 15y agoWrong. Diablo 1 had a long wait for Mac. http://www.diablowiki.net/Diablo_I http://www.diablowiki.net/Diablo_I
- getsat 15y agoInteresting, thanks. I was a dirty Windows user back then.
- fbuilesv 15y ago
- hackermom 15y agoI think I can hear the distant sound of marriage counselors rubbing their hands. It's THAT big.
- athst 15y agoOkay, so that means I have about 60 days left of productivity/having a life
- vyrotek 15y agoStart the count down!
- vyrotek 15y agoWhile I'm very (very) excited for this game.. I'm very nervous about my productivity this summer. There are few things that can pull me away from coding. This is one of them. Maybe D3 will open some new startup opportunities? Yes.. yes that's what I'll tell myself. It's all research.
- rkalla 15y agoI would lie if I said the same thought hadn't crossed my mind... while we are still in the era of comments like yours (and mind) being brushed off somewhat half-jokingly, can you even imagine in 10-20 years what kind of addiction-causing experience games will be? I think we are still 2 generations of game tech away from it, but at some point the addiction many people experienced with pathetically unadvanced games like WoW and the new Star Wars MMO will be child's play. In 10 years I expect the phenomenon of losing your job or your relationship over game addiction will be much wider spread and we may see an effort by the govt to put caps on experiences in 15 years. Once you can capture most all the methods of input from a player and produce multiple levels of output all for the purpose of engaging the player longer and longer, there has to be a governor at some point... until 25+ years from now where the tech is so advanced that some people's jobs are just to exist in these virtual worlds (i.e. marketers for Apple sitting at social hubs inside of Galaxy of Warcraft 50.0 talking people into checking out the new iPad inside the game where they can click a button to pre-order it in real life after playing with a 3D model of it in virtual-life). sigh I don't stand a chance...
- politician 15y agoChina has the demographics for pervasive addiction today with its moderately educated, underemployed, sexually-suppressed overpopulation of males (35M more males than females in 2009). This should lead to massive political unrest as in the Arab Spring and the knee-capped Iranian revolt of '09, but hasn't. I suspect that a significant force behind this pacification is gaming. Instead of banning Skinner boxes like WoW outright, the Party asserts control by dictating how much XP such games can deliver (cynically, drip), at what rates, for how long per day.
- thomasloh 15y agoright about time! let's find out what's 10 years worth of developing this game looks like!
- glanch 15y agoI think I remember reading that they basically scrapped everything and started over around 2007.
- debacle 15y agoJudging by many of the posts of /. and reddit, the level of distaste with the 'Battle.net 2.0' scheme for Diablo III is much higher than what it was for Starcraft 2, probably owing to SC2's inherently multiplayer nature and the huge deviation in gameplay from Diablo II to Diablo III. I has been common knowledge for a while that Diablo III will likely see a console port. Looking back, it's hard to imagine that that didn't severely impact the design of the game.
- nas 15y agoSC2 players hate Battle.net 2.0. I don't think Blizzard cares too much, since they are focusing on the larger casual market. They originally stated that there would be no chat channels ("why would you even what them?"). That makes sense for a casual player who is already on Facebook and uses that to communicate with their friends.
- debacle 15y agoI think the core idea is that Battle.net 2.0 represents a step back from SC:BW Battle.net in most regards, and the only steps forward don't make Battle.net 2.0 nearly as functional as WC3 Battle.net. Only time will tell if their IP has the traction to overcome the limitations of their system, and how that impacts future iterations of their games.
- thomasloh 15y agodoes pre-purchasing it now makes any difference than buying it on launch date?
- rkalla 15y agoYou might want to check all your different retailer's sites (Amazon, Gamestop, etc.) to see if they offer pre-order bundle bonuses as they do with other games.
- Teapot 15y agoDisappointing graphics so far. This is what i think Diablo3 should look like these days, http://uiu.bravehost.com/THIS-is-what-Diablo3-should-look-like.jpg http://uiu.bravehost.com/THIS-is-what-Diablo3-should-look-li... Anything less and i´m not interested.
- vyrotek 15y agoBlizzard doesn't really seem to focus on cutting edge graphics. They know their market really well and know how to make games that look pretty enough which run on almost any hardware.
- rkalla 15y agoBlizz has always designed around experience... in this case I think they decided going with the classic iso view would appeal to the nostalgia and more importantly allow the game to run on more hardware which is probably something they learned in spades with WoW. In a way they are like a high-end Zynga, always about the mechanics, always about the "feel"... keep you playing, keep you playing, keep you playing... because if yuo are playing you'll want the new Sword of Sadness from the auction house and put down the $3 real dollars for it instead of mining orbs for a week.
- uriloran 15y agoI think games like Minecraft have shown us that grafics is not the most important aspect of a game. Can't imagine a Diablo3 with this grafics would be a game for me, sorry.
- ascendant 15y agohttp://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/08/06 http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/08/06
- TwoBit 15y agoDiablo as an FPS could never be the same.
- Splines 15y ago
- valuegram 15y agoI'm interested to hear about expectations for Diablo III. I'm long ATVI because of their dividend, financials, and value fundamentals. Gaming also seems like a growth industry and Blizzard/Activision have some strong gaming franchises. I figured the upcoming Diablo III launch would only help the situation.
- politician 15y agoI love Blizzard's timing... by setting a date we can surmise that WoW's Free-to-Play model is failing and that May 15 is the latest date that a release-date-averse publisher like Blizzard feels it can still preempt the Guild Wars 2 release. It makes one wonder if these large publishers have game theoreticians working on optimum release dates.
- endianswap 15y agoThere definitely have to be some solid reasons behind this specific release date given the fact that they've been cutting features in the last couple of months to be ready to ship in May (such as PVP). When were their other games launched? I seem to remember StarCraft 2 launching around May/June. (Hopefully unnecessary disclaimer: I work on Guild Wars 2.)
- politician 15y agoSC2 was released early July 2010. D2 was released in late June 2000. WoW and its expansions in successive Christmas seasons. So, yes, I'd say that May 15 is atypically early for Blizzard. Given the online auction house component, they may feel that it's necessary to hook the summer crowd early to maximize returns from that casino. I wouldn't be surprised if this move forced Arena Net to push back to a Thanksgiving release, since people generally don't play two online "collect-em-all" games at once.
- ascendant 15y agoWOW is definitely heading into its twilight. If I was a betting man, I'd say MOP is the last expansion they'll put a lot of resources behind before throwing everything at Titan.
- davidtyleryork 15y agoIs it bad that I'm already scheming ways to make money off of the real-money auction house?
- TwoBit 15y agoI love Diablo but this was getting to be like Duke Nukem.
- reitzensteinm 15y agoInterestingly enough, Duke Nukem Forever was announced just four months after Diablo 1 was released - April, 1997. So D3 has been in the making longer than your average PC title, but it's not quite as bad!
- kmcgrath 15y agoRIGHT DURING FINALS WEEK, GREAT. Now there's going to be a lot more college seniors that won't be graduating.
- sbmassey 15y agoUnless they have some new control scheme, I don't think my hands will stand up to the intense mouse clicking this game needs.
- MartinCron 15y agoI found that with Diablo II, you could click a lot less than was intuitive. Click-and-hold would be as effective as click mashing, and a lot easier on the hands.
- piramida 15y agoit always has been click and hold.
- jchonphoenix 15y agoWhy is this relevant to hacker news? This piece of news is something I'd expect if I went to reddit, but this shouldn't be anywhere on Hacker News at all.
- Steko 15y agoExpectations for D3 have gone from out of this world to all over the place lately. On top of the release pushbacks and feature cuts a few weeks ago one of Blizzard's PR people said essentially "don't get your hopes up for D3" (Google Bashiok Diablo 3). That furor was a bit overblown but still expectations are down for many people. I think D3 will be more of what we got in SC2: essentially the same game but prettier. Which is sad because Diablo, WC2, SC and WoW were blockbusters (edit)in large part(/edit) because of their innovations.
- yaks_hairbrush 15y agoI don't like Blizzard much anymore. I liked WarCraft 2 and 3, and Diablo 1 and 2 (liked is a bit of a strong word for Diablo 1 and 2, though... 'twas more addicting than fun). Nice gameplay, good for LAN parties, and a decent hacker culture on all of them. In fact, the excellent map editors in StarCraft and WarCraft 3 were inspired by some hacker-made Warcraft 2 map editors. Now? Blizzard's doing all they can to control the whole experience. No LAN capabilities, shameful treatment of the bnetd folks, and others that have been mentioned here. Contrast to id games who open source their engines and invite folks to build on them.
- sad_panda 15y agoI have the beta. It's pretty awesome to behold, but the gameplay isn't significantly different than d1/d2.