Diablo 3 is Amazon's most pre-ordered PC title ever

Are you excited for Diablo 3 in just 2 more days? You are certainly not the only one because this news recently in says that D3 is Amazon’s most pre-ordered PC title ever. Wow! That is pretty impressive since we know many games have been on anticipated backorder. 

Joystiq brings us more details on the story:

A representative for Amazon told Joystiq that Diablo 3 is Amazon's most pre-ordered PC title ever. "Today, it became the most pre-ordered PC game of all-time on Amazon.com – even exceeding pre-orders for Blizzard's own StarCraft II and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm," the rep said.

It's been a pretty good month for pre-orders on Amazon. Earlier this month, day-one pre-orders for Black Ops 2 managed to top pre-orders for the first Black Ops and even last year's Modern Warfare 3.

That is actually very impressive when you think about it. Why do you think the game is so popular before it even launches? Will there be a lot of Diablo fans returning for this next phase of the story or do you think many of them are new players and new fans? Could some of the pre-orders be coming from WoW players who are now invested in Blizzard games and interested in checking out D3 even if they never played Diablo before?

It will certainly be interesting to see all the numbers after launch and see where they all balance out. As for you, why are you playing?

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Can Diablo 3 Live Up to the Hype?

With Diablo 3 just days away, we take some time to ponder and to wonder what the game will really be like after launch. Will it live up to all the hype or will fans feel let down by the game after all the chatter before its release? These are good questions. 

Here we take a look at one blogger/writer and long time fan of Diablo who explains whether or not Diablo 3 can live up to the hype. This from Just Push Start:

Spoiler alert! If you have not played the first two games and you plan on doing so, the story section contains a handful of spoilers.

“One of the things that I love about the Diablo franchise and I’m glad to see make a return to Diablo 3 is the fast paced hack and slash fun. Don’t get me wrong, there is some thinking that takes place before you rush in and attack a pack of mobs. However, if you are not one to strategize, then you can most definitely just pick up and play while still having fun with the fast paced action that takes place.”

I agree from what I saw in the demo and I look forward to exploring it more. 

He went on to say:

“I am a huge fan of the story aspect in any game. If it has a good story, then you’ll probably see me playing it. Blizzard is known for crafting great lore and that’s just one of their many talents. The Diablo franchise is no exception to that statement. In an attempt to not go on for hours about the story in Diablo, I’ll give you quick rundown of the history.

Long before the Diablo series began, there was a war between Heaven and Hell. This led to demons, known as great evils, entering the world of heroes, which as you can assume was not good. In total, there were 7 great evils, 3 of them were prime and the other 4 were lesser evils. To control this issue, the angels led by Archangel Tyrael got a group of Magi to imprison the 3 prime evils – Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal — in soulstones and bury each of them in secret prisons throughout sanctuary.”

All great points and again, there is more. If you check out the full story/preview, you can learn more about why D3 just might live up to all the hype. And in a couple more days, you can check it out for yourself and let us know what you think!

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New Downloaders for English and German

This is just out from Blizzard Europe. Apparently there are issues with older clients, so you need to download the newest client  again. Pro tip: If you downloaded the game to, say, /Desktop/Diablo-III-8370-enGB-Installer, make sure you point to /Desktop and NOT the D3 folder itself!

We became aware of an issue affecting the previously available German and EU English versions of the digital install downloader for Diablo III, which would not download all the necessary files. If you've pre-downloaded the digital version of the game in these languages before 10:00 AM CEST (9:00 AM GMT) on Saturday May 12, you must obtain the new downloaders to be able to install properly once the game is released on May 15. We apologize for the inconvenience, and ask that you please let friends and acquaintances know so they can begin downloading the working installer that's now available.
1. Obtain the new Diablo III digital downloader using the links below
2. Point the download save at the same directory as before
3. If you chose the correct directory only 50MB will need to be downloaded to fix your install, otherwise you'll re-download the entire ~7.6GB
New EU English InstallerNew EU English Installer (Mac)New German InstallerNew German Installer (Mac)

Whether you repair your previous install or download the entire game again, it's necessary to use this new downloader to install and play the game when it launches.

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Diablo 3 unboxed

Diablo 3 came with the mail today! The box includes two guest passes for Diablo 3 and one for World of Warcraft.

 "The guest account allows your to play Diablo III for free up to the Skeleton King boss in Act I. Note that certain game features are restricted on guest accounts - to remove these restrictions, you will need to upgrade to the full version of the game."

Doesn't mention how long it works.

The game was delivered in Finland and ordered from Konsolinet, most Finnish sites ship from the Åland Islands, and they send early and pre-orders are cheaper than retail.

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Diablo III: Can You Run It? Simple App Tells It All

The big day is almost here and if you’re ready to purchase your copy of Diablo III (or if you already have it on preorder) then you need to know whether or not your system is going to run the game. Even if you already tried the beta, it may not have given you a fully accurate idea of whether or not your system will run it since that was a stress test.

If you’re curious if your computer will run this game or not, then there is a good resource available to you. It's formerly known as: CanIRunIt.com with a redirect to the systemrequirementslab website.

The good thing about this site is that it will show you that many computers that are below the recommended specs still running the game. In fact, if you are holding off buying the game because you don’t think you will be able to play them, then you might want to wait until release and check the specs from other people playing the game. You just might find that you can play it with the settings on low.

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All Diablo III Developer Chat Q/A Summed up

Bestbuy.com had a Diablo III Developer Chat yesterday. Here is a compilation of all the questions and answers given. I think one of the coolest and best ideas that they added to the game is the "new system called "Nephalem Valor" that encourages you to kill randomly placed rares and champions. When you do, you get a stacking buff that increases the drops on bosses. This makes it most beneficial to play through random content, then go fight the bosses."

That's going to encourage so much more exploring of the map before the finals boss is killed, which will help reduce the grinding type game play of continuous runs of the same boss.

Blizzard Quote Q: When the option is selected to list things in the auction house for a real dollar value selling price, does that money go to the seller or Blizzard?A: Jay Wilson - We charge a $1 dollar service fee, or 15% for commodities. The remainder of the sale price goes to the seller.

Q: With some information out (may or may not be correct) about how hard monsters hit in Inferno, will WD pets still be viable?A: Jay Wilson - Yes, pets scale pretty well in inferno. You do have to refresh them, but they are useful for tanking mobs.
Q: What was the hardest thing you had to cut from the game due to time/prodcution constraints?A: Jason Regier - For me, it was PvP. I had a ton of fun playing it against folks at BlizzCon, but it just wasn't ready for prime time yet.
Q: Will there be anyway to share the wings I get in the Collector's Edition with friends?A: Jason Bender - Those are just for you, but you can apply them to as many of your characters as you like.
Q: Has anyone from the internal testing found a legendary item yet? Also, when are the stats for the legendaries going to be released?A: Jason Regier - I got one during testing, and when it dropped, I jumped up and cheered. It was awesome!
Q: Can you explain us about the bossfights? Will they be like Diablo 2 where the bosses had a fixed number of abilities and they just used them, or it will be more like WoW where the bosses have phases with different abilities and the scenery/positioning its crucial in the fightA: Jay Wilson - Depends on the boss. Some have a set number of abilities, some have phases. Most are a little more complex than Diablo II.
Q:I will like to start of by saying the game is looking amazing so far, and I'm new to Diablo. Can you use the WASD keys for movement or just the left click on the mouse?A: Jason Regier - Basic control in Diablo 3 is very simple. Just click to move, and click on monsters to attack them.Jay Wilson - We don't support WASD for movement. We don't think it feels good as a movement scheme from an isometric view.
Q: Will you make inferno difficulty easier if people will start telling you that you made it too hard and they cannot beat it, even that it is beatable at this point? Cause I remember in 90s games required skill to beat them and it would be nice to have at least one that kind of game at this point, without life regenerating itself etc.A: Jason Bender - Inferno isn't for everyone. We would like to keep it as challenging as possible. Also, don't forget Hardcore mode. That's retro-hard!
Q: How many times was the codebase rewritten over the years or was reuse pretty standard?A: Kevin Martens - We've spent a lot of time and energy getting the servers to be as prepared as possible. The big stress test during the beta was very helpful (thanks for all who participated). We'll have a big support team standing by at launch.
Q: What was your inspiration for the Wizard?A: Jay Wilson - We were inspired by old school pen and paper RPG's. We wanted a magic user who could control time, disentegrate, cast illusions, etc.
Q: Do you have plans to implement the Necromancer or druid at any point in the future?A: Jay Wilson - Any future classes we do are shrouded in mystery (insert scary ghost sounds).
Q: what are the plans for launch day, are the servers prepared for the work load that is coming?A: Kevin Martens - We've spent a lot of time and energy getting the servers to be as prepared as possible. The big stress test during the beta was very helpful (thanks for all who participated). We'll have a big support team standing by at launch.
Q: when you want to play with a friend who is much lower level than you, are you stuck playing the furthest ACT or DIFFICULTY they have achieved?
A: They can jump in to your game at a higher level (up to the highest difficulty they've achieved), even though they might miss story points. If the lower level player creates the game you will be limited to their story progress. You're not limited by ACT, but you are limited by DIFFICULTY.

Q: What was the funniest / most awesome bug you discovered during the development of Diablo 3?A: Jason Bender - Funniest bug? We accidentally had an event that summoned 5 treasure goblins at one time. It was great seeing people scramble to chase them as they ran in different directions. Serious chaos!
A: Kevin Martens - Perhaps a little less funny than awesome but I had an skeleton summoner with a bug with no limit on the number of skeletons and I went to a meeting, came back an the monitor was entirely filled with skeletons. I killed them all with a leap attack
Q: Besides PvP, do you have any plans on additional content to Diablo?A: Jay Wilson - Nothing solid at this point.
Q: Will the game have support for clans/guilds at release? if not, is something its being considered to be added in the future? I remember in Diablo 2 we had to create new characters to add the clan's tag.A: Jay Wilson - No plans at this time.
Q: I have had troubles with the FPS in the beta with my pretty decent upper class notebook, especially when bigger waves of monsters where on the screen? Has the FPS been optimized for notebook users for release since beta?A: Jason Regier - It's hard to say without knowing more about your particular configuration. We work really closely with our hardware compatibility department to make sure that lots of people have a great experience with D3, and we're always looking to make performance better.
Q: In the beta I had hard time determining how much damage a spell did. I later learned that if I held ctrl and moused over a spell it gave me a percentage. has any changes been made to make actual spell damage info more accessible?A: Jay Wilson - You can set more advanced tooltips to permanently display so you don't need to hold down CTRL. I do feel these could be more accurate in displaying the exact damage you're doing, and we may improve it in the future.
Q: Due to the amount of time it must take to produce the cinematics, how does that influence/affect a more interactive game design process?A: Kevin Martens - The cinematics team is very, very good at working with us to identify the moments of a cinematic that are most prone to change and leaving those to the last possible moment. There is seldom an issue that we can't change with a line change or a simple new shot. The process and time limits have not been much of a problem at all.
Q: I know that Diablo 3 is a click-to-move type game, but for sufferers of Carpel Tunnel syndrome, it can be very painful to click that much. Is controller support available in the future, if not, can players use applications such as xpadder for use with controllers on the computer?A: Right-click drive mode allows you to automatically attack while moving when you hold the mouse button down instead of clicking. Several of use this to reduce clicks. (You can imagine how many times we've click in the process of making the game!)
Q: Are the end of the act bosses still going to be the enemies with the highest dro prates for the most sought after gear resulting in "Baal Runs" being the best way to gear up, or will you encourage players to scour the map looking for rarespawns and giving them a higher drop rate instead.
A: Jay Wilson - We have a new system called "Nephalem Valor" that encourages you to kill randomly placed rares and champions. When you do, you get a stacking buff that increases the drops on bosses. This makes it most beneficial to play through random content, then go fight the bosses.
Q: Say for example that I am playing a high level character, but I want to play with my friend who only has a low level character. Will me joining his game ruin the experience for him because I could just blast through the content and make it too easy for him?A: Jay Wilson - You could blast him through the content, but his XP will be greatly diminished to the point that it's not very beneficial for your low level friend.... Unless he likes spoilers. But that' what Youtube is for.
Q: In regards to internal testing, did any of you try out a completely ridiculous build and manage to make it work in a later difficulty?A: Kevin Martens - We spend a lot of time trying out "wacky" builds like melee Wizards or pet-less Witch Doctors and it is a fun, often challenging way to play. We often find ourselves changing a skill or two when we get stuck on a particular elite

Q: How much does the difficulty and greater item quality drop change when your buddy enters the world to play with you?A: Jay Wilson - Depends on the difficulty level you are playing in. I can't remember 'exact' numbers, though. It hovers around doubling monster health per player, but there are other variables as well.
Q: What happeneds after i beat inferno mode? P.S I LOVE YOU GUYS AWESOME JOB WITH THE GAME!
A: I'm pretty sure Jay comes to your house and gives you a big hug.
Q:Hey guys, what are the best moments you have from development time?A: Jason Bender - Blizzcon was super-motivating. Also it's fun when we have hours long discussions about crazy design ideas, then see the exact same arguments happen on the forums.
Jason Regier - For me, one of the best moments was seeing hundreds of people playing the game for the first time at BlizzCon. The response was fantastic! I can't wait for the public to finally play the full game.
Q: Bashiok stated that the display of BattleTags in games was a bug. Today Lylirra said that it wasn't. So is this a bug or not? If not then what exactly is the point of character names at all?A: Jay Wilson - It's not a bug, it is supposed to be displayed in game. We felt showing the Battle Tag was an essential element to identifying your friends and didn't want players displayed with different names in different situations. The purpose of character names is to help the player identify their characters in the case they have multiple of the same class and for extended presence.
Q: In diablo 2 as you got further into NM and hell the areas became much bigger. Will the same happen with the later difficulties of Diablo 3? I remember Durance of Hate level 3 normal vs hell and having a huge area difference.A: Kevin Martens -
The areas do not get bigger in later difficulties and it hasn't impacted the fun at all. Bigger does not equal better in level design, in the vast majority of cases. We've concentrated much more on the second-to-second challenge and item rewards for higher difficulty playthroughs.

Q: Can you keep teleporting if you are under 1 second, using the wormhole rune on the wizard?A: - Jay Wilson - You can teleport as many times as the animation will allow in the time before the cooldown is triggered.
Q: My question is..... So if inferno has its own gear tiers Act1 - Act4 will all the normal thru hell gear end up being trash or will some items end up being good way past their level unique items?? Thanks in advance :).A: Jason Bender - You'll need to gear up for a while prior to Inferno, so He|| gear will still be valuable for a while. Inferno ramps harshly, though, so you'll need to farm early inferno to handle late inferno. There is a point where gear becomes useless, but a perfectly rolled rare or legendary item can last a long time if it has the affixes you need. Don't forget crafting components, too. Old items can be used to crafter better ones.
Q: is there a way to switch weapons quickly on the run? (As we did with Diablo 2 by pressing "W") ?A:No. In polling players this seemed to primarily be used to hot swap to high magic find weapons right before a boss died, which didn't seem like great gameplay to encourage.
Q: Is there any customization to the character when making a character at the start screen? Also is there any customization later in the the game?A: Jay Wilson - You can also use dyes to customize gear, and even hide pieces of gear that have good stats that you don't like the look of.
Jason Regier - At the starting screen, no. But within the game, there's a huge number of combinations of items and skills to choose from. Those choices really make your character unique.
Q: Was anyone in the internal test team able to beat the fourth difficulty of the game ? If not what is the reason for that ?A: Kevin Martens - No one has beaten Inferno.
Q: Will third party programs that collect data about how much loot/gold is dropped where and when be allowed to use?A: Jason Regier - Using 3rd party programs like those is against the terms of use.
Q: Many Beta Testers have conserns about the text size of the user interface being either to small, or to large.Do you have any plans at this time to introduce scaling o accessability options for the User Interface and Item Stat Text ?A: Jay Wilson - Not at this time. Every feature has development cost. If there is demand for something like this we'll weigh it against other features we could add to the game. We did, however, increase font size late in the Beta.
Q: For the Witch Doctor, with Zombie Handler and Circle of Life passives, are you able to go well beyond having 4 summoned dogs on the field at once or is there some sort of cap?A: Jason Bender - 4 is the max for dogs. You can get up to your max nyumber of dogs with a variety of skills (beyond just summoning them), which is good if they're dying a lot in higher difficulties, but that doesn't break the cap.

Q: Developers: Which act is your favorite to play through?A: Jason Bender - I like Act 3. Because... er... *SPOILERS*!
Kevin Martens - Interesting question as that actually changes for me based on the difficulty. I like Act 3 on normal just because of certain battle sequences (no spoilers!!!) but like Act 2 on Nightmare because the bump in difficulty there is a fun challenge for me.
Jay Wilson - Don't ask me to pick my favorite child. ;)
Q: So I read that we can make a new characters in other regions other than our own, will we be able to copy a character over to that region or will we have to start a new one to play with our overseas friends?A: Jason Regier - You will have to start a new one.
Q: Did you find it difficult to convince others (Co-Wokers - Players) that a stat system wasn't very fun and just a math game? And also, was it easy to convince others that a skill system that was developed around experimentation would be more fun than a Diablo 2 system of constantly re-rolling? (I love the skill system lets me try whatever I want to try - I feel rewarded for experimenting. I feel more games should have this type of system.)A: Jay Wilson - Yes, it was difficult. :)
Q: What is the highest gem level that we can expect to drop?A: Jay Wilson - Tier 5 gems are the highest that drop.
JayWilson - Correction: we drop gems up to tier 8.
Q: Beyond what we have already seen and the sets in Inferno, how many unique weapons and armor sets can we expect to see in D3? Will more be added? (outstanding job so far!)A:Jason Bender - We have a ton of cool ideas that we would like to do. A bunch are in the works, but I can't yet say when they'll be ready for you. (The art team loves making these.)
Q: Will there be the option to change the strength of the monsters by pretending to have more players in a game? Like in D2?A: Jay Wilson - Not at release. With the challenge level of Inferno we did not see this as necessary.
Q: Will Melee Wizards be Viable in hardcore Mode?A: Kevin Martens: For difficulty modes: certainly, the challenge will be harder in later difficulty modes. But really, this question points to a cool point of depth/awesomeness in our system. With the right gear and some practice, melee wizard will be viable--maybe barely but still. For Hardcore Mode: Again, with the right gear, maybe, but it is a risky thing to try. Let me know how you do ;)
Q: Are the angels wings from the CE, an emote thing? or is it like an item you can trigger on and off? also is there a cooldown on them?A: Jason Bender - They're linked to a 1x1 item that goes in the inventory, but you can put them in your stash. You can click your wings to turn them on and off. There's no limit to how many times you can use them.

Jason Bender - (Also No cooldown on the wings)
Q: Is there a separate appearance for the female barb when she goes berserker mode (the ability for 15 sec that you unlock at lvl 30)and how does she looks like can we not have a picture or something because we only see the male.A: Jason Regier - Yes, she looks different.
Q: Do bosses get more abilities through the difficulties to make them harder or do they just have scaling dmg and life? ie. in nightmare, hell, and inferno. Also, does Nephalem Valor only apply in Inferno?A: Jay Wilson - Not really. We have a couple cases, but they are mild enough that I'd say overall no. Bosses mainly scale in stats. And yes, Nephalem Valor is Inferno only.
Jay Wilson - BTW, I said earlier that Nephalem Valor is only available in Inferno. This is incorrect. It kicks in at level 60, regardless of your difficulty level.
Q: The new skill menu has been highly discussed by a large group of players awaiting Diablo III, and there has been much criticism (Despite it being an improvement over the early beta skill UI). Will there be further changes or did we see a finalized version of that system in the last patch of the beta?A: Jay Wilson - Other than polish-oriented improvements (of which I can't recall which made Beta and which didn't) the skill system is basically unchanged from the final one that appeared in Beta.
Q: Thank you for answering my first question. How far back does the behind the scenes in the CE cover? Does it cover any early D3 development or does it only cover the past couple years? Any word on when we can expect the web API for D3 or at least more information on it?A: Jason Bender - The behind-the-scenes talks about all kinds of crazy stuff, so there should be some good history in there for you. Not sure about the API.
Q: Will certain areas in Diablo 3 have different treasure classes like they did in Diablo 2 for finding higher items or does it just come down to how far you have progressed into the game and is there a diminishing effect of the amount of mf your character can have eg. like a mf cap?A: Jay Wilson - I don't really know how to answer the treasure class one, lots of areas have different treasure classes but we try to make areas relatively equal depending on challenge and monster level. MF is not capped, though.
Q: With Diablo 2, enemies in hardcore difficulty almost all recieved an immunity to one type of damage. Does this trend continue into Diablo 3, or are the enemies / affixes made threatening in different ways?A: Jay Wilson - We do not use immunities as a monster affix. We focused more on powers that change up the monster's threat and challenge different classes in different ways.
Q: LOVE YOU GUYS & D3!!! :P Thanks for the Answer :) Also BTW how does sharing MF with a group work and is that group % amp'd up by "Nephalem Valor"
A: Jason Bender - MF is an average of the group's MF rating, so everyone either contributes combat power or boosts the group's MF. Valor covers the party.

Q: will I be able to have multiple keys on the same account IE: Collectors Edition and Standard? and are we able to use"Dual-Boxing" ?A: Jason Regier - No, you can have one license attached to the account. Dual boxing isn't supported... you'll need to have multiple battle.net accounts.
Q: How is Inferno difficulty being balanced as a sort of longterm endgame opportunity? Will characters struggle in inferno until they acquire really epic gear or is the aim for Inferno to always be very challenging even when characters are decked out? How does magic find gear play into the balance of being able to clear inferno (E.G. Being able to clear faster and safer vs wearing MF gear vs Nephalem Valor).A: Kevin Martens - Inferno is balanced to never be trivial, even with the best gear. If some of you end up finding it trivial, we'll certainly be paying attention--good luck! Magic find gear vs. survivability gear works much like you think. You'll probably use MF gear when you are farming an area you know/think you can survive in and switch to survivability gear once you are trying to get further into a tough area.
Q: Do you think that assigning a very specific/distinct personality to each character was a good call? A lot of people seem to be thrown away from wizard for example, just because of his not so cool attitude. Or the not-so-badass grandpa witchdoctor (character wise). Thanks :)A: Jay Wilson - Yes, we do think it was a good call. We think improving our game story by making the player characters active participants is worth the risk that a few players might get turned off by the choices for those characters. Without making this choice it weakens our story, and strong story is one of the most requested ways the community wanted us to improve Diablo.
Q: Is it an accurate assessment to say that expansions would follow the inferno progression and have a few levels but significant gear upgrades. Or will it be more like a level cap increase with inferno-like content at the end?
A: Jason Bender - We're concentrating on a smooth launch right now. Next up after that: PVP!

Q: Will there be a ladder and ladder-only items to keep Diablo 3 fresh for years to come? I know a lot of people still play Diablo 2, and were excited about the recent ladder reset.A: Jay Wilson - Not currently. We'd prefer to find better ways to accomplish this. If we can't come up with something better we'd consider a ladder in the future. It's not a problem that needs to be solved right away.
Q: Speaking on Inferno mode, Blizzard has in the past made encounters like pre-patch C'Thun that were statistically impossible to finish. While that feat hasn't been repeated in World of Warcraft, is that a concern for Diablo 3's Inferno mode bosses?A: Kevin Martens - There are not statistically impossible bosses/challenges, at least not by design. There are extremely difficult moments in Inferno but I do think that people, with practice and gear, will be able to finish it. Let the race to end of Inferno begin on May 15th, everyone!
Q: Any plans for Lobby like Diablo 2?A: Jason Bender - We support public chat channels, and we are always looking to improve the Battle.net service. It will evolve over time. (The trick is getting the chat gem working juuuuuuuuust right.) :-p
Q:Hi Guys. Breathtaking work so far!, I wish you the best for the release!. My question would be how often can we expect to see new patches in terms game mechanics but also item stats in the span of perhaps one year?. Second question to Jay - will be rolling barb & monk combo for the first playthrough on hardcore, what would you say the chances are defeating hell?A: Jay Wilson - We'll patch as the game needs it. Predicting a timeframe isn't something we'd do now. For your second question, need more information. How good are you? I'll just guess. I think you personally have a 37.4% chance to beat Hell.
Q:Can you implement a force Stop key (differing from force Stand Still), where pressing the key will stop all actions including movement and holding the key acts like force Stand Still? Finer movement controls will open up more mechanics!A: Jason Bender - We always try to keep the controls streamlined where we can, but if there's a need for a new UI element we will surely consider it. No plans just yet on that particular item, though.

Q:Why are the Monk's heals not scaled by stats? The monk can never improve healing with gear. By contrast, the Barbarian's heals scale with damage or max HP.A: Jay Wilson - His heals scale with his level. They are powerful enough that we had concerns that if they scaled with gear they would be too good. Barb heals are personal, but Monk heals are group oriented, which is why they are handled differently.
Q: I Feel that a Dota style pvp map / pvp game mode would be perfect for Diablo..any plans in the works?A: Jay Wilson - That would be like making a whole new game inside our game. There are some parallels, but enough differences that I'd rather we focus on our core cooperative and PVE experiences.
Q: How large is D3 compared to D2? Will it take as long or longer to clear the game (excluding inferno)?A: Kevin Martens - Length of the game varies greatly depending on play-style and randomness. Play-style means completist poke around in every corner type people vs. rush the main objectives people--big difference. Randomness affects the length because you could be walking through an area and roll a 2 level dungeon (10-15 minutes of gameplay) or a 30 second ambush event. Depending on what rolls, that can really change your length. But regardless, length isn't the concern in a game so focused on replayability. Not that the game short so much as that is not what the design challenge is.
Q:Can you craft "inferno" level gear? if not what is the highest level gear you can craft?A: Jason Bender - Yes, and it's awesome! It takes a lot of components to get to the best gear, though.

Q: Are you concerned that the current Skill UI along with the Skill tab for cycling through skills has perhaps been too categorized and requires a potential excessive amount of cycling through to find things? Example: with the Demon Hunter, why not just have three categories with Hatred Generators, Spenders, and Discipline skills instead of how things are split up now? Isn't that much easier to understand instead of the seeminly excessive categories at the moment?A: We've found that categories in the current skill system UI is really helpful for newer players. And the "Elective Mode" option is there for advanced players to customize their builds to their heart's content.
Q:Some people say they will not be rolling a WD because it is a silly class, what do you say to them? Also, Soul Harvest seems too good at the moment....... 6 ..... more...... days ........A: Jay Wilson - I'd rather people be highly opinionated about our classes than not care. We made five classes just in case you don't like one of them. ;)
Q: What's up with gems? Are they going to be socketable in more than just helms and weapons?A: Jason Bender - Gems can be used in helms, weapons, and a variety of armor slots.

Q: In order to sell items on the real money auction house, do I have to have funds in my battle.net balance?A: Jason Regier - No, you can sell items without having any money in your account. There is no charge for posting items.
Q: Would you say that Diablo III's soundtrack is overall, Wagnerian in texture?A: Jason Bender - I'm not music history oriented enough to know the right pigeon-hole genre for our score. I think it is too varied to simply fit into one sub-genre.

Q: Do you have any comments on Athene vs Kripp for worlds first Inferno kill?A: Jason Bender - I guess someone needs to take the other side of that bet, so Athene had better win. I like hot dogs. (The real question is: Who gets the world's first HARDCORE Inferno completion!)
Jay Wilson - $20 and a coupon for a free hot dog on Kripp.
Q: Is it possible to place the dyes and wings from CE in the shared stash ? (so if i later upgrade my game to CE i could get the CE exclusives for my old heroes)A: Jason Regier - Yes.
Q: A new article on a fansite was just posted describing a way to use the WD to sacrafice zombies to do 25,000%+ weapon damage. How confident are you at this time that classes are balanced endgame?A: Kevin Martens - There are billions of class and skill combinations--literally. They inherently cannot be balanced at time of ship due to lack of working time-machine technology and/or Groundhogs Day -style repeat testing days. We look forward to following all of you as you find incredibly awesome builds.
Jay Wilson - Hold on, getting Wyatt for all your complex Witch Doctor questions. :)
Q: Will Legendary/Set items have their own unique graphics independent of the "tier" sets or will they look the same?A: Jason Bender - Legendary items and set always have unique art, stats, names and flavor text.

Q: Is the best gear in the game ("potentially," stats-wise) limited to dropping in Inferno difficulty, or are the differences between Inferno gear and end-game hell gear mostly cosmetic or drop-chance related?A: Jay Wilson - The top three tiers of items, which are the best, only drop in Inferno.
Q: What class are each of you going to play at release? Softcore or hardcore?A: Jason Bender - Witch Doctor. Also I'm looking forward to crying over my first hardcore character. And my second. And my third.
Jason Regier - Witchdoctor for me too. Hardcore!
Kevin Martens - No pornography references, please! (Monk, softcore)
Q: Are there any non-set Legendaries that will only drop in Inferno Act III and IV?A: Yes. Legendary items are dropped based on the level of the monster or chest, so we have several at the max level that can only be found in the end of Inferno.

Q: Dueling: Will you ever consider patching in dueling “in-game” without having to lose the current play session and hit the arenas? The purpose is for fun things like settling disputes amongst friends, battling for items, or just killing time waiting for a friend to come back. It cannot be used for griefing due to mutually acceptance of the duel (and could even take a knee like in WoW so as there is no death).A: I'm not opposed to this, but it's not a trivial amount of work, and is not a priority for us right now. We want to focus on our team-based arena mode right now.
Q:Will there be any bosses that are only in certain difficulty modes?A: Jason Bender - Bosses appear in each difficulty, but there are a handful of unique monsters that only appear in certain difficulties. Also there are a number of rare/champion affixes that don't show up until you reach later difficulties.

Q: How does the treasure goblin scale, in regards to HP, in the higher difficulties? Will they always take a couple of hits to bring down?A: Kevin Martens - Treasure Goblins are harder to kill at higher difficulties. I never miss one in normal but often fail to kill one in time in higher difficulties, usually because I'm too paranoid about being killed by elite monsters to chase him aggressively.
Q: Will there be any more 'randomization pockets' (such as the Hanging Tree and the Corpse Pile) in the areas we played in the beta for us to discover?A: Kevin Martens I suspect that the beta players have discovered most, if not all, of the randomization pockets in the beta areas, but there is much more D3 to come. Also, there are rumors of secret things being secretly secreted somewhere secret.
Q:Will the mobs or bosses have diminishing returns/immunity on stun/slow/fear abilities? Or stunlocking them in inferno with 4 barbarians its totally possible?
A: Jay Wilson - Elite mobs (bosses, champions, rares) are affected to a lesser degree by control skills, and are immune to a select few. We do not have a system for diminishing returns, as we want CC to be useful even against bosses.
Q: Does the explosive beast rune for zombie charger work with the final gift rune for zombie dogs? ie zombie dogs from zombie charger dropping health globes? Thanks.A: Kevin Martens - No, it does not.
Q: Are there any plans to ever had "hotkeys" in the game so we can quickly switch between different spells like in D2 with the F-keys?A: Jason Regier - The hotbar at the bottom of the screen gives you easy access to your current skills, and you can change the keybindings for it if you don't like the defaults.
Q: How will the Monk and Witch Doctor passive skills that avoid death work in Hardcore mode?A: Jay Wilson - They will allow you to avoid death! Congratulations, hardcore player, you have outsmarted mortality!
Q: Do i need to read the quest dialog to fully understand the diablo lore ? or i can simply watch the cinematics and understand what is going on ?A: Jason Bender - There are several ways to enhance your enjoyment of the story. The cinematics are meant to keep the story clear, but the more you read, the better it should be. (Even the item and skill flavor text adds to the lore.)
Q: can we follow treasure goblin through portal to a special dungon?A: Jason bender - One wonders where they go!
Q: I heard a rumor around a month ago that players can recieve an extra reward if they don't switch their build for an entire Act, is this true?A: Jason Bender - Not exactly true. It's good to explore builds. Nephalem Valor goes away if you respec, but that isn't based on the act.

Q: how will mf work in groups. say if 2 people have mf and 2 are just dps. will it take the groups mf number as a hole or just 1 person for their drops only?A: Kevin Martens - Magic find is averaged across the party. If you have two MF people with 100% and two DPS people with 0%, then each person has 50% for their drops. Loot is, of course, per player.
Q: Is "rushing" a character possible? Or are there some kind of restrictions that keep a player from getting to Nightmare/hell/Inferno in a significantly shorter time period than usual.A: Jay Wilson - A higher level character can help you jump past content within a difficulty, but you get greatly diminished XP, so you really need to go through legitimately. We have hard level requirements for difficulty levels, though, so no shortcuts there.
Q: I know you don't plan to support Diablo 3 to be a eSport - If the commnunity wants it to become a eSport(without the implied balance), would you support it with replays/spectator mode and more ?A: Jay Wilson - No. We don't want Diablo 3 to become an E-sport. It's OK to have PVP just for fun. Our focus is on our PVE game, and we want it to stay there.
Q: What was it like being able to take a game I'm sure you all loved, and being able to expand the story, and create amazing things I bet the original creators would never even have thought of?A:Jason Bender - It was a privilege. Personally, I feel incredibly lucky to be involved with Diablo, one of my favorite game worlds of all time. It was never hard to come up with cool ideas, just tough to pick the best to make the coolest game possible!

Q:Many people are trying to get world first 60 and think it is doable in as little as 20 hours. Can you give us any insight on this?A: Jay Wilson - World's first what?
Q:How do you guys feel about the Barbarian in Inferno (being a melee class and all), especially regarding (the need for?) Shields?A: Kevin Martens - Survivability is certainly something that you need to gear for in Inferno. Shield is the easiest vs. most obvious choice but certainly you can gear for a higher DPS with a different selection of gear and skills. It is still a fine balance between your play style, your DPS, your survivability stats, etc. None of those things can be out of balance for the way you play in order to survive at Inferno.
Q: So, you guys are always talking about how diffcult Inferno will be. What about the others? Does this mean nightmare and hell will also be too easy for us just like normal mode? Thats a serious concern for me...A: Jason Bender - Different players find different things challenging. (This also depends on your gear.) Finishing Inferno in Hardcore mode will not be easy!
Q: Is stun duration reduced in hell/inferno or is the same as in normal?A: Kevin Martens - It has been reduced.
Q: Will you share game statistics with the community? For example: ### different Monk builds have defeated ? or other misc data?A: Jason Bender - We like sharing cool stats, but no specifics yet on what they will be.

Jay Wilson - To the person who asked if we might add or remove skills: we'll do whatever we think is right to balance the game and make the classes feel well rounded and effective. In other words...maybe. ;)

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Seven days!!

either way, you are losing your life in 7 days.

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Diablo 3 Will Not Support AMD's Catalyst 12.4 Release

We’re officially on the countdown to the release of Diablo 3 and there are only days left to go. As we grow closer to the date, we find new ways to prepare and continue to bring you the latest updates and news surrounding D3. I know I am pumped and ready to play, as I am sure many of you are as well.

However, if you want to fully enjoy the game, then you might need to check your drivers before the big day. Diablo 3 Will Not Support AMD's Catalyst 12.4 Release and if you’re running this version, you will have to set them back to 12.2 in order to play the game. 

Just Push Start gives us the story:

Omrakos, a ‘Support Forum Agent’ from the official Diablo 3 forums has revealed that Diablo 3 will not support the latest AMD Catalyst Drivers. If you continue reading the thread, which you can do here. It seems that users with the Catalyst 12.3 release are experiencing the same error, which says that the video driver is not compatible with the Diablo 3 Beta.

There is an easy fix this problem though, as many have found out that if you roll back your drivers to the Catalyst 12.2 release you will no longer see that error. To do this just follow this simple guide form Overclock, and use the drivers posted below. Make sure that you click the one that corresponds to your system.

Read more on the fix here.

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Blizzard's Internal Test Team has Never Beaten Inferno Difficulty

How hard is Inferno difficulty going to be? That’s a very good question but Blizzard knows how hardcore their fans are and I’d be willing to bet they are going to make every effort possible to give us just what we want. So I’m thinking it’s going to be pretty darn hard.

Here’s an interesting fact about the game that we discovered from our Twitter stream: Blizzard's internal test team has never beaten Inferno difficulty.

Jay Wilson, Blizzard Game Director for D3 answered this question on Twitter:

“Was anyone in the internal test team able to beat D3 Inferno difficulty?”

The answer?

A simple “no”. 

I have a funny feeling some fans are going to read this as a challenge. How long do you think it will take the first player to beat the game on Inferno?

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Diablo 3 to sell 3.5 Million Units this Year, Expects Analyst

We know Diablo 3 is popular; the buzz is out already. But just how popular is it going to be? Does Blizzard have another hit seller on their hands? One analyst definitely believes this is true. 

Arvind Bhatia states that publisher Activision Blizzard’s Q1 FY12 financial results, which will be released on May 9, is due to meet street expectations. He also notes that the company's forthcoming action RPG Diablo III can ensure that stock pricing soars following its release this month.

In his industry note, Bhatia said despite Diablo III launching "after a gap of 12 years," it holds the "potential to sell more than 4 million units life-time, including 3.5 million units this year." Furthermore, he said that Diablo II sold an accumulative of four million units by August 2001, which was 14 months after its June 2010 release.

Those are some pretty big numbers but I’m not at all surprised. Diablo fans have been waiting years for this game and Blizzard fans who did not play the Diablo series before are also interested. I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of people calling in sick to work on May 15^th in order to check out the game right from day one. 

Will you be purchasing and playing? 

Source: NeoSeeker and VG247.com

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Diablo in Five Minutes

With Diablo III on the horizon, we thought we'd take a quick look back at the series and get you caught up on the story so far. Watch the video, relive some good memories of adventures past and get ready for Diablo III!

As an avid Diablo player, it's so much fun to see my hours summed up in 5 minutes. Oh, how I've spent my life well.



this recap is OK for someone who just wants to breeze through the game, but the pre-D1 recap is extremely oversimplified. He starts off: "Long ago, the great conflict between the light and darkness spilled into the mortal realm", which is pretty darn oversimplified. I'm not going to go into great detail, because others do it so much better, but here are some cliffs notes.

Long ago, there was no mortal realm. The light and dark clashed, and a few from both sides got fed up with the whole shenanigan and stole the worldstone to create the mortal realm (mortals are demon/angel hybrids, long story). They lived in peace for a while, until eventually the hells found out about it, and banished a few of their top people to the mortal world to keep them out of the picture. the exiled demons came up with a plan figuring the mortals would be better off serving them. The heavens found out and almost decided that the mortals would all be better off dead, but lucky for us tyreal put a stop to that. The exiled demons gained favor back with the ones who exiled them, and they're all trying to use humans for their side of the war now. Tyreal is trying to stop this, we don't know exactly what the rest of the heavens opinions are on the mortal world at the moment, some of them still seem to want them dead...

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Diablo 3 high level skills (New non-blizz video)

This video is not actual gameplay nor is it some really old footage. It was taken using the d3 emulator mooege. The lag is from the emulator as it uses a lot of resources and is not representative of the beta or the final game product. The item drops is obviously not representative of the final product either. Most of the visuals are in fact accurate but there is a process in getting the actual skills and visuals to look right in the emulator so as some noted a few might be a tad buggy looking or unfinished. The process of getting skills to work both in animation and visually is not simply a data-mining process.

First clip: This is what it looks like when you gain sixty levels in one second.
Rest is putzing around with runes. The DH in the video is such a badass that he slowjams combat.

Hate to admit it as he's my least favorite but I had a lot of fun with the WD. I could see a petless build being fun, and I really love acid cloud in all of its forms. The spitting rune is a little buggy in the emulator but eh. I just now saw the name for one of its runes, "Lob Blob Bomb" which I think is a bit of a spoof on the character "Bob Loblaw" from Arrested Development, probably the greatest name ever conceived. Bob Loblaw lobs law bomb. Bob Loblaw lobs blob bomb?

Nothing beats the wizard for me, though.

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Male VS Female Male VS Female Comparisons

Have you ever experienced the hassle and frustration of creating a character, only to find later as you are playing it that you don’t like the way it looks or that the animations drive you crazy? Sometimes there can be a large difference between the male and female models in a game. Diablo is no exception. This was true with the other games and it will be true with Diablo 3 as well.


But if you’re wondering what you should play, there is one fan who’s helping us all out with his comparisons between male and female animations look in-game. itsJaded has comparisons to other classes as well and not only will it give you a good insight to the game, it will also prevent you from picking the wrong sex when you make your class. Check it out for yourself and let us know what you think!


Here is a video comparison of the Demon Hunter:

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Cash Out Profit Table from the D3 Forums

A lot of people have been concerned with the cash out profits, stating that Paypal will charge fees or too many fees and that cashing out will cost them.

Here’s the official blue post on the matter:

Posted by Bashiok
“PayPal will not charge any fees for transfers to them. You'll pay a 15% transfer fee to move any funds to your PayPal account, and then whatever you do with the money after that is between you and them. But the transfer to PayPal is 15%, and that's it.”

Here is a chart and related info from the D3 forums that explains it all very well: 

Formulas

Items

(Sale Price - 1)*(1-Blizzard to Paypal Transfer Fee) = Profit

(Sale Price - 1)*(1-.15) = Profit

Commodities

(Sale Price)*(1-Blizzard Commodities Fee)*(1-Blizzard to Paypal Transfer Fee) = Profit

(Sale Price)*(1-.15)*(1-.15) = Profit

What are commodities?

Commodities are crafting materials (from salvaging items), gems, and gold.

Basically, sell-able items found under the Other section of http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/ and gold.

Calculator available at http://www.diablofans.com/news/1188-rmah-information-monk-animation-changes-male-vs-female-animations-new-skill-videos-blue-posts/

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Diablo 3 Could Have Shipped Earlier but Timing is Everything

We are all awaiting the launch of Blizzard’s upcoming game, Diablo 3, which will be on May 15th but as many already know, this was actually delayed from when Blizzard first said we could expect it. They planned to launch the end of 2011 and some say they held out because of SWTOR.’s release from BioWare around the same time.

But Blizzard says the delay was necessary to make sure they were giving us the best game possible. While they could have released it earlier, they say it would not have been as good of a game. Lead Software Engineer, Jason Regier said in a developer vlog:

 “We probably could have shipped the game earlier, but I think that it would not have been nearly as good a game as it is now [...] Back then it was pretty good, but we’ve really kicked it up a notch since.”

Blizzard is well known as a company who takes their time making games in order to make them the best they can be but this has proven time and time again to work out for them. I played the beta of D3 and honestly, I think it’s a pretty good game as it is. Of course I was anxious to see more content and the beta was limited but I was excited about what I saw. If you’ve had a chance to play D3 already, what do you think?

Diablo III Developer Diaries, Part Four 

On March 21, 2012, with Diablo III nearly finished and a release date of May 15, 2012 finalized, Lead Software Engineer Jason Regier, Game Director Jay Wilson, and Art Director Christian Lichtner returned to the studio, and talked about the time required to make a quality game, how the team approached the skill system, the rune system, and community feedback.

For more information, additional exclusive interviews, artwork, and more, visit the Diablo III "Darkness Falls, Heroes Rise." website:
http://reveal.diablo3.com

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XP requirement graph. How much XP needed to get to level 60.

Keep in mind, this is entirely meaningless until we know how much exp first hell monsters give. Just looking at these numbers: 1-30 Normal, 31-50 Nightmare, 51-60 Hell, it is kind of normal to expect a 150% spike from Normal-Nightmare, then a 200% spike from nightmare-hell.

Overall, I don't think you'll notice a whole lot. That graph is basically just a visual representation of the whole 1-30 Normal, 31-50 Nightmare, 51-60 Hell thing.

The TRUE MEANING of this is actually more interesting....
Because you spike so much at level 50, this actually means that you can probably farm in late nightmare quite a bit before going into hell. This was probably designed specifically for this purpose - to allow people just finishing nightmare to spend a lot of time in nightmare and still get exp, but for that level to take you a while... to make you feel like you are earning the right to enter hell.

For example, if that level 50 spike was shallow, you could just stay in nightmare for maybe an hour or two, ding level 51 and then go off on your marry-way in hell. With that spike, it means if you want to level up in nightmare for a bit, you'll still be raking in experience while doing it, and it won't feel like a wasted endeavour..

I think the graph being this way will really keep people in nightmare for a while. I'm assuming hell is going to be pretty hard at the start, with undergeared (under pimped) characters. It's not like you can have a level 60 character feeding your level 50 character optimal gear to break that hump. The first character we all play will likely really FEEL that level 50 bump in difficulty entering hell.
This exp graph ensures that if we are going to farm late nightmare for gear, we may be doing it for a while.

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