Multiple Diablo III Expansions Tuesday, November 18, 2008, 15:13 | Acolyte
| Author: thecowking
In a recent interview with MTV Multiplayer covering World of Warcraft expansions, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime also had something interesting to say regarding Diablo III:
Morhaime: In terms of expansions, I think a little bit more frequently is probably good with sort of the goal to get closer to an annual expansion. But I think it really depends on what content you put in the expansion. I don’t think Blizzard will ever be able to do sequels of products like a “Diablo III” or “Diablo IV” on an annual basis, but we might be able to do expansions to those games close to annually.
It would be great if we could have an expansion annually, but the likelihood is slim. Blizzard has always said that the quality of the product outweighs the quantity, meaning they should focus on releasing fewer games with superior quality rather than simply milking the series for as much money as they can get.
Will we see several expansions to Diablo III? It's hard to say. After waiting eight (and more likely to be ten) years for this game, Blizzard may feel they have to make it up to their fans by releasing annual or bi-annual content packs. Being that Diablo III will likely wrap up the main story, coming up with new content afterward would prove a much easier feat for the development team.
Monday, November 17, 2008
New Art Director For Diablo III Monday, November 17, 2008, 05:25 | Acolyte
| Author: thecowking
It appears the list of Diablo IIIjob openings is dwindling down, with the Art Director position being removed among others.
Former Art Director Brian Morrisoe stepped down just after the announcement of Diablo III at the 2008 Worldwide Invitationals in Paris, France. No names have been announced for the position, but we will post the information as soon as it becomes available.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
New Wave of Battle.net Account Bans Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 09:36 | Acolyte
| Author: thecowking
In a recent policy update, Blizzard is cracking down on Battle.net cheaters and hackers, closing over 350,000 StarCraft and Diablo II accounts. This must be an attempt to have a smooth transition over to Battle.net 2.0. Although features of the new and improved Battle.net service are not available yet, it would not be surprising if Blizzard issued harsher rules for cheating on the new system especially if your Battle.net account will tie in to both upcoming titles, and likely your World of Warcraftaccount sometime in the future.
Nebu on November 11th, 2008
As part of our continued effort to ensure a fair and fun online experience for all Battle.net players, we have expanded our efforts to remove cheaters from StarCraft and Diablo II. We have identified and closed over 350,000 StarCraft and Diablo II accounts which were found to be using third-party hacks.
The Diablo II CD keys associated with the closed Diablo II accounts are now restricted from playing on Battle.net for approximately 30 days. Repeat offenders will have their accounts closed and their CD keys permanently banned from Battle.net.
As a reminder, we reserve the right to close the accounts and ban the CD keys of players who are caught cheating on Battle.net. Cheating ruins the game experience for legitimate players, and we will not tolerate it.
Blizzard has announced the winners of the 2008 Pumpkin Carving contest. This year's winners receive a Logitech G51 Surround Sound Speaker System. Excellent job to all the winners, especially "Torah", creator of the Diablo III pumpkin!
Diablo II Senior Producer Moves Studios Tuesday, November 4, 2008, 05:16 | Acolyte
| Bill Roper, who was Senior Producer to Diablo II and CEO of the now effectively defunct Flagship Studios, has joined Cryptic Studios to direct design on the upcoming massively multiplayer online game Champions Online.
“Bill brings a ton of creative energy to the Cryptic office and we’re thrilled to have him join our team,” said John Needham, Chief Executive Officer for Cryptic Studios. “His years of gaming and online experience are huge assets to all of our projects, and Bill will assist us in furthering our studio’s vision to create innovative, exciting MMO gameplay.”
“Cryptic has experienced huge growth over the past year and has exciting opportunities ahead of it,” said Bill Roper, Design Director, Cryptic Studios. “The company knows how to choose compelling IPs that have rich histories such as Champions and Star Trek. I’m looking forward to working with the team.”
Champions Online is the next-gen successor to superhero MMOG City of Heroes, developed by the same studio for both PC and Xbox 360. The game is built on the tabletop Champions role-playing game and adopts its ruleset dubbed "HERO System." It goes beyond just one city to offer adventures to alternate dimensions and "outer space."
Cryptic is also developing Star Trek: Online, a second MMOG, in which one builds and controls a Federation or Klingon starship as Captain or Warrior.
WoW Hits 11 Million Subscribers Tuesday, October 28, 2008, 11:38 | Acolyte
| Author: thecowking
Blizzard announced today that its smash-hit MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) World of Warcraft hit 11 million subscribers. For you math junkies out there, that's roughly 165 million dollars a month earned from subscribers, or around 1.98 billion dollars a year!
IRVINE, Calif. - October 28, 2008 - Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced today that the subscribership for World of Warcraft®, its award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), now exceeds 11 million players worldwide. This milestone was reached as the beta test for Wrath of the Lich King®, World of Warcraft's second expansion, nears completion. Wrath of the Lich King will launch in several regions around the world starting on November 13.
"It's been very rewarding to see gamers around the world continue to show such strong support for World of Warcraft," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment®. “We remain fully committed to responding to that enthusiasm with a high-quality, constantly evolving game experience.
Since debuting in North America on November 23, 2004, World of Warcraft has become the most popular MMORPG around the world. It was the bestselling PC game of 2005 and 2006 worldwide, and finished behind only World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade®, the first expansion pack for the game, in 2007.* In addition to being the bestselling PC game of 2007 in both North America and Europe, The Burning Crusade holds the record for fastest-selling PC game of all time, with nearly 2.4 million copies sold in its first 24 hours of availability and approximately 3.5 million in its first month.
Blizzard Content For Mobile Phones Tuesday, October 28, 2008, 11:24 | Acolyte
| Author thecowking
Blizzard has just announced some new content available for mobile phones. Now you can have Diablo content with you at all times on your handy mobile device!
Carry a little piece of Azeroth wherever your real-world travels take you with our new World of Warcraft-themed wallpapers and ringtones for your phone. We've just launched a new service in the United States that lets you download content related to your favorite Blizzard Entertainment games to supported mobile phones. Currently, these wallpapers and ringtones are available through carriers AT&T, Cellular One, Sprint, and Verizon; support for T-Mobile and Virgin Mobile is coming soon.
Over 65 pieces of content are currently available, including ringtones from World of Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo, as well as wallpapers featuring character artwork, logos, and more...
Monday, October 27, 2008
IGN Music Review: "Echoes of War" Monday, October 27, 2008, 09:15 | Acolyte
| Author: thecowking
Blizzard Entertainment in conjunction with Australia's Eminence Symphony Orchestra are releasing a music package entitled "Echoes of War", to feature orchestral arrangements from all Blizzard franchises. New music from Wrath of the Lich King, StarCraft II, and Diablo III will also be featured. Previews in both video and mp3 format are available for your listening pleasure.
Australia's Eminence Symphony Orchestra, which gained notoriety worldwide from its viral videos of music played at its A Night in Fantasia concerts, has teamed up with Blizzard Entertainment, creator of World of Warcraft, Diablo and StarCraft, to produce an album of rearranged orchestral music. We're talking iconic music from titles past – Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft III and World of Warcraft, and well as orchestrations from upcoming games - Wrath of the Lich King, StarCraft II, and even Diablo III. This truly is a 'best of Blizzard' package.
For those of you who want to start your own fansite, Blizzard has just announced a Diablo IIIfansite kit. Included are the following:
Art assets including concept art, hi-res logos, and wallpapers
Site design elements including borders, backgrounds, fonts, and stylesheets
Exclusive content: Forum avatars / Messenger images
Diablo III fact sheet and FAQ
Sample Diablo III text content
Site building tips
Thursday, October 23, 2008
IGN: PC Games That Should Go Console Thursday, October 23, 2008, 06:48 | Acolyte
| Author: thecowking
IGN has come up with a list of ten PC games that should go console. All of Blizzard's franchises made the list with Diablo III coming in at the ten spot.
10. Diablo III
But, but the art isn't grim and gothic… Enough with the complaining over the actual use of colors in Blizzard's upcoming Diablo III. The original loot quest series is employing a bigger palette and looking sharper than ever. Console gamers are getting used to grinding and looting thanks to games like Too Human and Phantasy Star Online, so there's no reason why Blizzard shouldn't assemble an edition of Diablo III for modern systems and show gamers what a real loot quest looks like.
Although the first Diablo was somewhat of a dud when released for the original Playststion, Diablo III would do fairly well. If it plays anything like the Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance series, its success would be inevitable. The ease of play, new achievement system, and countless hours of gameplay make Blizzard's latest dungeon-crawler a prime candidate to go console.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
BlizzCon 2008 Encore Presentation Tuesday, October 21, 2008, 15:29 | Acolyte
| Author: thecowking
Good news! For those of you who missed out on the DIRECTV Pay-Per-View showing of BlizzCon 2008 or if you want to watch it again, DIRECTV is having an encore presentation of the event coverage on Thursday, October 23rd starting at 11am EST/8am PT.
See extensive coverage of the event, where gamers from around the world gathered for tournaments, demos, panels, interviews and more. No fan of World of Warcraft, Diablo or Starcraft can afford to miss this.
Blizzard's Secret MMO Is Not WOW 2 Sunday, October 19, 2008, 07:26 | Acolyte
| IGN PC reports on words from Blizzard Entertainment CEO Michael Morhaime regarding the company's in-development but mostly secret "next-gen" massively multiplayer online game (MMOG). Morhaime stated that the game is "not going to be a World of Warcraft sequel" in an interview with Wired Magazine.
When asked how different the project would be from WoW, Morhaime paused, and replied "It's gonna be different." After being pressed some more about the differences, he reiterated his stance, "...let's just say it's going to be different and it's not going to be a sequel to World of Warcraft. It will be different."
The careful words Morhaime chose do not necessarily rule out a prequel, but semantics aside it's safe to assume that this means a MMOG from one of Blizzard's two other game universes. That means we could be seeing either a StarCraft or Diablo MMOG.
The recent Sin War trilogy by Richard Knaak and Blizzard, said to be the new baseline for lore in the Diablo series, does include some content relevant to MMOG-style games. An army of humans led by the protagonist Uldyssian are introduced to the magics that lie hidden within themselves, different abilities forming a limitless variety of hero archetypes.
The StarCraft universe is equally likely, if not more so, to be expanded with a MMOG. Blizzard's decision to shelve the previously in-development StarCraft: Ghost role-playing title where one took the role of Nova, a Terran Ghost agent, leaves the possibility that such content was transferred to be part of a larger format title. Creating a great variety of playable classes and skills in the world of StarCraft would pose a greater challenge, however.
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