Yep.

Well, hopefully.

Is this about the mysterious count down on the diablo 3 fansite? Because I don't think that is going to be about any sort of announcement about a blizzard product. They wouldn't announce a game through a fansite and if they did give the site a heads up on info coming out the site would probably just leak that.

That being said diablo 3 is inevitable and will probably show up around 2009/2010. Frankly I wish Blizzard would do something new, they have been barking up the same trees for 15 years and really, who gives a fuck about the diablo storyline?

Well as long as Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft still have huge fan bases I really don't see them branching out all that far from those franchises.

That's true. Even though Starcraft is a pile of shit, Diablo is the same thing over and over, and Warcraft is generic, they're still money-makers and I foresee Blizzard continuing to capitalize on the brands.

That's it. I'm going back to ShadowRun MUSH.

I liked Diablo II ;/

But yeah I hope blizzard comes out with a whole new game platform.

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"Creating Havoc and Pie Since 2001!"
My Website: http://www.anthonyhays.com
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I am currently playing Diablo 2 with a game overhaul mod called Median 2008. It is refreshingly new, and the strategies you use for characters have shifted quite a bit. All new tech trees, graphics for skills, items, drop rates, areas, bosses. Quite a lot of fun.

Linky : http://modsbylaz.planetdiablo.gamespy.com/

I've seen mention of original Blizz teams being replaced in the past. Like all their art team and such. I dunno how much truth to that there is, but I'm not sure how good a new franchise would be for them if that was true. People would probably still eat it up if it's made by Blizzard though.

It'll be 2-3 years out even if they are working on it. Which would fit into a time line with it being an MMO and it replacing WoW and them stopping after Lich King.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

WoW won't be succeeded by any other MMO in the next 5 to 7 years.

By starting Diablo 3 now and making it an MMO it can be on a 3 year time frame to hit about the time people would be wanting a WoW expansion. And that would take care of coming up with something to do after Lich King.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

Rock N Roll racing MMO...like auto assault only good.

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It wouldn't make sense to make a Diablo MMO since it's the same genre as WoW. I think they'd make a Starcraft MMO before a Diablo one.

/shrug, I just don't see it being all that likely they'll want to further the WoW storyline after however they deal with Arthas. The more they make the more of their storyline is set in stone and could end all the storylines that are left from Warcraft 3.

I just really wouldn't be suprised if that's what it is. Besides, it's win win for them, some people will keep playing WoW, some people will play both. They get to retain storyline for further RTS games. Even if people quit WoW to play Diablo 3 it's still their game so they're going to make a return on it, and if it's a subscription based game then they haven't lost anything and have set themselves up for the next several years to do whatever else they want.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

It would make sense for them to make a second MMO because right now they lose a lot of monthly income from burnout. If they had the two top MMO's instead of just the top MMO the second game would be an income safety net. People burning out from WoW would have somewhere to go where they are still giving blizzard money. Someone at blizzard is a diabolical genius..

Yeah, my money's on a StarCraft MMO next.

They could definitely do a Diablo MMO, and I like the idea of it being a "horror-based" MMO.

Think of all the different lands from D2, with their back stories already developed. You already have tons of bosses to base raids off of (endgame raid = Diablo in the lowest plane of Hell). If you consider D1, D2, and the expansions, you have fully developed classes with different skill trees (which adds cool variety). And the gear is all developed as well (including set items, artifacts, socketed items, runes, charms, etc).

I think it'd make for an awesome MMO personally.

So much of the itemization mechanics were borrowed for WoW, they'd have to do something different.

Well just a few more days I guess. I'm just curious because, with words like "half the internet linking to us" either they have an extremely enormous set of egos over there and it's some fan-based bullshit or even a crappy Diablo 2 mini-update... Or it's Diablo 3. If the suggestion is that a massive number of sites are going to link to them, I can't think of anything else that big. Diablo movie? Highly doubtful.

If it is Diablo 3, I'm just hoping they keep it the same formula like they're doing with SC2 rather than radically redesign everything. Diablo 2 was definitely a blast to play, and it's STILL superior in many ways(but not all) when compared to much more recent action-RPG titles.

The loot system was probably the most solid aspect about it. Upgrades felt seriously epic. It was much more robust than WoW's iteration, though they obviously have more freedom to play with making loot powerful in an action-oriented RPG when compared to an MMO.

Lately though, Blizzard has really seemed to enjoy re-inventing the perfectly fine wheel(well, hopefully that's just WoW... LFG system, voice chat, Alterac Valley version 238.9823 anyone?) so Tranthas may be on to something. Here's to hoping he's wrong, though =p

There's no way it will be a Diablo MMO. There's not nearly enough LORELOL in place for that. Diablo 3, like Warcraft 3, would be a perfect segway to it. But, I agree that it is an entirely different genre with entirely different expectations. Diablo has the expectation of being able to pop in for 30 minutes and do something meaningful and fun, and logging off. I just can't envision it as an MMO I guess, but it could be done. I just think they'd make more off that franchise by keeping true to the formula....

Although they won't make any money off it until they make a 3!

Meh spoke too soon:



So, not a network merge, understood. But it could still be that they're selling the site to Blizzard, and Blizzard puts up one of those single-picture webpages as a placeholder.

My blind optimism shall not be deterred!

"It's not about a movie" and "It's not about an MMO" are sort of conspicuously absent from a list like that, no?

Surprisingly, "It's not about your mother" is also missing.

They're already making a WoW movie supposedly, I just really doubt it's a movie. I'd be more excited about a Diablo MMO even though it's not exactly what I'd like to hear about, particularly because I can't recall the last videogame movie that didn't suck balls.

Or is this "going to be the one"? Heh. Right =p

Dude, The Last Starfighter rocked!

The Resident Evil movies were pretty good, and I enjoyed Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

True, and those weren't bad movies(despite what people said about Final Fantasy, I personally thought it was pretty good). But then again, they weren't Shawshank Redemptions or Gladiators either.

Anyhoo, looks like the news was that Blizzard was acquiring the diablo3.com domain name:

http://www.diablofans.com/

Blizzard apparently explicitly stated that this does not constitute an announcement. Nevertheless, the rumor mills will run rampant. My only question is, why now? Certainly they have every right to pursue their own intellectual property rights, but why after 8~ some odd years after Diablo 2 when that site has been around so long? I think this is definitely at least a hint of it being in development, but some of your guesses of 2-3 years may not be too far off... could still be a while =p

I don't know... I could see them coming out with a Diablo MMO. If you think about it, WoW is an enormous cash cow and Starcraft 2 will make a ton as well. They could just use Diablo MMO to stomp out the rest. They could make a Diablo MMO that is more PvP oriented or raid heavy to reach out the older gamers and/or compete with the AoC's, WAR, and Darkfalls to be.

Blizzard could petty much say play WoW with the world, or if that's not your thing how about some RTS on Starcraft 2? Still no? You like it rough eh? How about our new Diable MMO. Hardcore raiding and if you like we have servers where you can PvP hardcore in hell. Personally I think they have the money to go ahead and take over the entire market.

Even if they did, they wouldn't keep it. Inevitably, absence of competition will cause quality to slack until people who couldn't compete a year ago look like serious contenders again. It always happens. In a real monopoly, you control supply and there can't be any competitors, but in an industry where you create your product using electrons and time, no one can strangle supply.

Diablo 3 needs to hurry the fuck up.

Might as well hold your breath. They'll get SC2 out first and they are working on another MMO they'll probably unviel at BlizzCon. I'm thinking Q2 2010. SC2 will be sometime 2009 and they'll announce the new MMO Q3/Q4 2009.

Blizzard isn't your typical MMO company that has 30 games going at a mediocre standard. They put a lot of time and quality into their unvielings. This is just me being skeptical though...

Blizzard's next MMO might be on console systems. The next gen systems I would think. Its a bit late in the game for the Xbox 360 and PS3

Blizzard's 'next-gen MMOG' to heat up consoles?

I don't know about that. So far the longevity of WoW makes me wonder about the logic behind an mmo on a platform that becomes redundant in 4-5 years.

http://kotaku.com/5191005/what-diablo-i ... f-warcraft

Latest batch of D3 screenshots reveal UI, Inventory Screen, and Talent Window (ala D2 and WoW)...

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Sweet, and we're only 3 years away from launch!

It'll be out summer/fall of next year I suspect.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Monk class confirmed.

Game footage and trailer up.

Looks sick.

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I tried both the Barb and the Monk and found myself exclaiming 'Cool' several times when I was playing the Monk.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

I will be so disappointed if this game doesn't make it out this year or next. It seriously can't be that hard to make this type of game. Not with Blizzard's billions of dollars.

2011 I am betting on. When they said "Starcraft 2 will ship next year." that pretty much means everything else is fucked.

They haven't updated Diablo 2 to 1.4 yet have they?

For the most part they're completely independent teams; I expect to see SC2 sometime maybe next summer and the absolute earliest you'd see D3 would be Christmas next year.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Cash auction house. Won't be buying this game...

And like that's going to be game breaking feature for some people I guess? No one is forced to use it, and they said you won't be forced to use real money. So what's the issue then? Hell, if you can make a few hundred dollars off a video game...I don't see an issue at all.

Also, there will be a gold-based AH as well (with trading)...so as long as it's not forced..it's your lose if you are not going to buy the game buddy!

if they separate the people who buy/sell from the cash AH from those who don't, then I won't complain too loudly.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

I just play private games with friends and friends of my friends... If I find something that I can sell for $$ then great.

Once they've experienced what it's like to try and run eBay for a while, they'll drop the cash auction house anyway.

Well I guess there will be no ladder resets.

EDIT:

Actually I guess there will be more ladder resets now and old characters simply moved off the ladder.

They can make some serious cash with that since they will take a chunk of every transactions... So I doubt it.

Highly unlikely they'll drop the concept entirely. Blizzard has a long track record of doing things once they set their mind on an idea and announce it, and if something IS changed later it's usually an altered form rather than completely scrapping something.

I'd be curious to see if anyone offers up an alternative to the idea, though. At the moment, I don't see a very viable one. WoW is a pretty good example of how ignoring real-world market value for in-game items can lead to a micromanagement nightmare for its GM staff. Imagine how many hours, or how much manpower and resources were put into trying to control it.

In the end people are going to pay cash for things they perceive to have value, period.

I doubt it'll pose a very big threat to the sale of this game. A very large group of gamers will be playing exclusively with friends anyway, which negates it entirely.

I just hope the game doesn't look/feel like Diablo 2 did when it came out, dated...

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

I hope it plays exactly like Diablo 2, perfectly.

Diablo 2 certainly felt a bit dated when it came out, but it had the right stuff where it counted. It was an expansive Diablo 1, which was precisely what the crowd asked for(and rightfully so). Diablo 2 had that uncanny ability to bring about anyone's true inner loot whore.

I hope it retains many of the gameplay elements, but I would also prefer more fleshed out skill trees and roads of progression. If I had one complaint about Diablo 2, it would be the skill trees. While I'm disappointed with the number of classes, I'm slightly encouraged by some of the ideas like skill runes and equipment enhancements. Hopefully they follow through on more of that kind of stuff to make the game more engaging later on.

Anyhoo... Did SC2 feel dated when it came out, Argrax? =p It will probably feel a bit like that, just from the perspective of 2012.

All I know is that I remember waiting for the better part of half a day at Future Shop for their truck to arrive with my copy of D2:CE and being disappointed by the graphics when I finally got it home and installed.

Was it a quality game that played well, yes, but the maximum resolution available was something like 640x480 when other games were 1024x768.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

gameplay > graphics.

right now we have a lot of really pretty games that play like shit and have no replay value (or any first time play value) -- I'd rather a game come out with a dated graphics engine that keeps me engrossed for more than a week.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

I am in that category too... these days graphics are good enough. Gorgeous graphics is secondary to me-- gameplay matters more.

Ok, I promise to never speak negatively regarding a Blizzard game ever again..

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

If you think that's a blizzard fanboy talking you're wrong.

There have been plenty of games that came out, looked shiny, and played like shit - either they were no fun to play, or they didn't last nearly long enough. Bioshock was a great game, played well and was just long enough. Same thing with Fallout 3.

Baldur's Gate (1/2) and Icewind Dale are examples of games that were fun, but had shit graphics for the time. Same with Diablo 2.

Final Fantasy XIII LOOKED fantastic, but played like shit. Same thing with Lost Odyssey.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]