Blizzard fires 600Blizzard fires 600

In the midst of all the Diablo 3 news, Blizzard has stunned the media with a grim announcement: Blizzard has fired 600 people.

The reason for the layoff is unclear but Blizzard stated that the World of Warcraft team will not be affected. I think they meant that the live (development) team will not be affected, because it’s pretty obvious where the cuts will be the deepest – WoW’s customer support and community services.

Considering that Blizzard had added 5000 people to handle WoW’s unprecedented success in terms of customer support, it stands to good reason that now that their subscription numbers are suffering (2 million lost), they will reduce the support staff accordingly.

The real question is whether this will delay Diablo 3 even further. Mike Morhaime was quick to state the company is “continuing to develop, iterate, and polish Blizzard DOTA, Diablo 3, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, as well as other, unannounced projects.”

I guess he listed them in order of release. The DOTA (custom Starcraft 2 map) will probably come out in April-May with Diablo hopefully following in June. It remains to be seen if this is more smoke and mirrors from Mike – after all, he said they are doing EVERYTHING they can to release Diablo 3 in 2011. Obviously, “everything” was not enough. 

Diablo 3: Anaysts Agree On 5m Sales For Blizzard’s Action RPGDiablo 3: Anaysts Agree On 5m Sales For Blizzard’s Action RPG

 

Diablo 3 will, unsurprisingly, sell like hot cakes according to multiple games industry analysts.

Published on Mar 22, 2012

Diablo 3’s release date of 15 May is edging ever closer, and while the game’s launch will be the culmination of impossibly high anticiaption levels from fans, sales will reflect the hype according to numerous games industry analysts.

Wedbush Securities’ Michael Pachter thinks Diablo 3, which is available to pre-buy on Battle.net, and can be pre-ordered elsewhere from 10 April will have a particularly strong launch.

“I’m sure Diablo 3 will sell very well, probably 2 – 3 million the first month and 5 million or more overall,” he told NowGamer.

Eric Handler at MKM Partners thinks likewise, suggesting 5 million units shipped during Diablo 3’s “first quarter of release,” or by August.

Cowen & Company company analyst Doug Creutz was the first to suggest the 5 million figure last week, but it seems like an increasingly realistic figure for Blizzard’s action RPG, and will mark an impressive single-format launch if the developer/publisher can pull it off. 

Diablo III beta key instructionsDiablo III beta key instructions

 

What to do If you win

Here’s Blizzard’s detailed instructions on what to do if you’re lucky enough to win a key:

Diablo III Beta Test Invitation (Key Claim)

Getting Started

1. Log in to Battle.net.

2. Click on the “Account” button.

3. Select the “Add a Game” button.

4. Enter your Diablo III beta key and select the “Activate Game” button.

5. Verify your age.

6. Select Windows or Mac as your operating system to download the beta client.

7. Select “Run” when the installation .exe pop-up box appears. 

What Do You Think of the Diablo III Beta?What Do You Think of the Diablo III Beta?

Are you one of the lucky gamers who has been playing Blizzard’s beta for Diablo III? If so, we want to know what you think!

You can tell us whatever you like, but any or all of the following would be good to touch on:

 

Does it live up to expectations?

 

What do you like most about it?

 

What you like least about it?

 

What do you think of the new skill system?

 

How about the skill runes?

 

The enemies?

 

The visuals?

 

The sound?

 

The character classes?

We want to know what’s blowing you away, and what’s disappointing you (if anything), in other words. So if you’ve been playing the beta, you can submit your thoughts in the comments below, or send us an email, and we’ll compile some of the most interesting and insightful feedback into a feature on Diablo III, driven by IGN’s community.

With the game’s release date in sight, there’s no better time to put together the definitive community impressions of this highly-anticipated title! 

consultate with the scroll of resurrectionconsultate with the scroll of resurrection

We recently re-launched the World of Warcraft Scroll of Resurrection with new mounts, instant character boosts to level 80, free upgrades to Cataclysm for players who don’t own all the expansions, and much more. Today, we’d like to take a look at some of the finer points of this powerful new way to reconnect with your friends in Azeroth.

First steps
If your friend hasn’t played since December 2009 (or earlier), he or she will first need to upgrade to a free Battle.net account before you can send a Scroll. Just have your friend log in to Battle.net and follow the instructions to merge a World of Warcraft account to a free Battle.net account. Returning players may want to add an authenticator to their Battle.net accounts while they’re at it. Attaching an authenticator isn’t required for the Scroll of Resurrection promotion, but it’s always a good idea.
Eligibility
To be eligible to receive a Scroll, your friend must have previously subscribed to World of Warcraft for at least 30 days, and your friend’s account must have been inactive since March 4, 2012 or earlier.  You can send a maximum of two Scrolls of Resurrection per day (one from within game, and one from within Battle.net), so choose your recipients carefully.  Aside from this daily limit, there is no limit to the total number of Scrolls you can send, but all Scroll invitations expire if not claimed within 30 days.

The Scroll of Resurrection is for previous World of Warcraft subscribers. If you’re looking to recruit someone who has never played before, check out our Recruit a Friend program.
A little patience at first
Scrolls of Resurrection are sent out once a day in large batches, so it can take some time for your friend to receive it.  Be patient!

  

diablo digital edition is now availablediablo digital edition is now available

 

the End of Days approaches…. Diablo III will be unleashed from the Burning Hells on May 15, 2012, and you can be ready to play the minute the servers go live by pre-purchasing

the game digitally on Battle.net today.

Beginning May 15, players around the world will be able to return to Tristram to discover the dark secrets of a fallen star and begin their quest to save Sanctuary from the

impending demonic invasion. To secure your place as a barbarian, monk, demon hunter, witch doctor, or wizard right now, simply log in to your Battle.net account, and then

purchase and download* Diablo III, and you’ll be ready to play when the game launches.

  

Issues With RMT ?Issues With RMT ?

 

Diablo fans have eagerly waited for the arrival of Diablo 3. When the RMT or Real Money Transaction function was introduced, it had mixed responses.  The South Korean Rating Board stated, “The feature involving for-cash trades between users was not included in the presentation to the rating committee, and therefore it was not subjected to any scrutiny.” Because of this,  Blizzard has had issues trying to get Diablo 3 approved in South Korea  and has now opted to take out the Real Money Transaction feature from the South Korean versions of D3.

The real question remains, will Diablo 3′s RMT feature be omitted from other country’s version of Diablo 3? And will this effect how/which regions players choose to play from? We’d love to hear your input on this, so feel free to leave a comment below! 

Diablo III’s real-world currency auction houseDiablo III’s real-world currency auction house

 

At a press event for Diablo III held last week, Rob Pardo, Blizzard’s vice president of game design, unveiled two new – and potentially controversial – elements of the forthcoming dungeon-crawler. Diablo III will require an internet connection in order to work, and will also feature real-world money trading via an in-client auction house.

“We want you to always be connected to the game,” Pardo said, when explaining Blizzard’s decision to require even single-player games to be authenticated online. “Diablo III, like StarCraft II, is going to be an online-only experience. There’s not going to be any sort of offline characters or what-have-you. We thought about this quite a bit and one of the things we felt was really important was, if you did play offline, you’d start a character, you’d get all the way to level 20, or level 30 or level 40, and then at that point you might decide to venture onto Battle.net, you’d have to start another character from scratch, because there’d be no way for us to guarantee there were no cheats involved. We really feel that people are going to benefit from being an online game.”

It’s a design decision that makes a lot of sense when seen in the context of the new focus on real-money trading. “What I think is one of the most exciting features of the Diablo games is trading,” continued Pardo. “Yet Diablo II really didn’t have a robust way of trading around. What you really had to do was get into the chat screen and negotiate something there, and then go within the game. Another thing that people would do is post on forums. There were even third-party sites where people would trade for real-world money. So, what we’re doing is the Diablo III Auction House, and…you’re going to be able to buy and sell items for real-world money. Everything from items and gold to components can be sold, and we’re starting to discuss whether you can sell characters, but that would be something that we’ll do later on.”

Diablo III will have two auction houses integrated directly into the client, with one allowing players to buy and sell for in-game gold, while the other uses real-world money. Auction houses will be divided up by region, and while players will be able to use any currency that’s available within their region, trading outside of that region will not be possible. Auto-bidding and instant buyouts will be supported by both houses, and a smart search is being implemented in order to allow players to home in on items that are suited to their classes and load-outs. “Most importantly, you’ll have a secure item transfer,” explained Pardo. “No more of having to go into a town with a bunch of items and hopefully you won’t get cheated. In the auction house you’ll be able to buy and sell and the item will automatically get transferred without you having to worry about any badness happening to your stuff.” 

Pardo also announced that the economy will be player-driven, and that Blizzard does not plan to put any items or gold up for sale itself. “This is all about facilitating player trading, so what we’re not doing, which is very different to a lot of the microtransaction models in Asia where the company is selling you the items: we’re not doing that. Players will be anonymous during trades, and players can decide how they want to utilise the auction house and which auction house they want to use.” Jay Wilson, Diablo III’s game director, added that Hardcore – a mode that includes permadeath – players will only be allowed to access the in-game gold auction house so that customers don’t end up “putting money into a character that then dies”, and that the company would be taking a hands-off approach to the economy. “We don’t suspect that we’re going to have to do any kind of regulation, and we’d prefer to do none,” he said. “We don’t want to be seen as manipulating the auction house in any way. [In terms of player manipulation] with Diablo, per region, you’re talking about around a million players, so the notion that you’d be able to out-spend that many players to control the marketplace, that’s not something we expect to be an issue.”

Blizzard will be taking fees for both item listings and the eventual sale in the real-world currency auction house, although it’s planning to allow players a certain number of free listings per week. Pardo said that, although he wasn’t ready to discuss the fees in depth, “we’re really looking for nominal amounts here, and they’ll be fixed flat rates. The listing fee will be a nominal amount because we don’t want every single item in the game to show up on the auction house. We’re also kind of saving players from themselves, because if you could put everything on the auction house, you would. Obviously, Blizzard’s going to benefit from the business model, but we wanted to encourage people to buy or sell whatever items they want. We didn’t want to take a percentage of the transaction fee. We didn’t want to have any perception of us manipulating the items or wanting to have really powerful items for a lot of money or anything like that.” (There will also be an in-game gold fee for the gold auction house.)

When it comes to receipts, players will be able to either keep money in their Battle.net eBalance to spend on other Blizzard games and items, or cash it out. “If you cash out there will be a percentage fee that we have to apply as we’re going through a third-party provider,” concluded Pardo. “But again we want to keep that as somewhat low and reasonable. Today I’m not going to be able to provide you with who we’re going with because we haven’t finalised yet.”

the   permission  regaing exchanging the items and gears into real-world currency in auciton house of  diablo 3 must restricted  by some regulations and rules for  purpose of forbidden  some malice player and unlegally company took any percentage of profit in-game ,

Asked if the decision to include auction houses came from the design team, Wilson replied, “It’s absolutely a design decision. One of the things is that whenever we decide to make a product or a service…we think about what would be the best possible service we could offer to our players, and what they want. Later on, we go, okay, can that make money? If the answer comes back we’re going to lose our shirt, we can’t do that. If we’ll break even, cool, let’s do it, and if we can make money, great, that’s even better. The desire to do an auction house and to make that a real-currency auction house was in the game really early on. I can foresee players who just play the auction house. I’ve meant World Of Warcraft players who have hit the gold cap and just play the auction house – it’s what they like to do.”

As for the decision to allow players to pay in real-world money, Wilson said that, “it came from the standpoint of watching the players from Diablo II and WOW and seeing there was a demand for this, and that was something players wanted. Whenever we see that, once of our first gut is to say, “Okay, is this a service we can provide? Because there’s a demand for it.” If they want it so bad that they’re willing to leave the game, go to some other website, risk being banned, risk credit card fraud, account compromise – that’s a lot of risk, and that means that’s a lot of demand that players have.”

Finally, asked if the addition of real-world money sales tipped Diablo III’s gameplay towards something that felt a little more like work than play, Wilson responded, “If there’s a danger to that, it’s already happened, as items in Diablo II already have real-money value. We don’t think it’s a danger that isn’t already there.” 

RATING INFORMATIONRATING INFORMATION

Platform: Macintosh, Windows PC
Rating: Mature
Content descriptors: Blood and Gore, Violence

Rating summary: This is an action role-playing game in which players assume control of a mortal hero (e.g., witch doctor, barbarian, wizard) who must defend humanity from a demonic invasion. From a 3/4–overhead perspective, players traverse dungeons and use swords, axes, and magic attacks to kill a variety of human-like enemies (e.g., zombies, demons, succubi). Battles are accompanied by slashing and flesh-impact sounds, screams of pain, and frequent blood-splatter effects; creatures often explode into bloody fragments as multiple enemies are dispatched at once. Some levels depict burning corpses and dead villagers amid large pools of blood.
Online Notice:

Includes online features that may expose players to unrated user-generated content (Macintosh, Windows PC) 

Diablo 3 won’t launch with PvPDiablo 3 won’t launch with PvP

Lead designer Jay Wilson said in a post on Battle.net that the PvP Arena system will arrive in a post-release patch.

“As we’re counting down the days until we’re ready to announce a release date for Diablo III, we’ve come to realize that the PvP game and systems aren’t yet living up to our standards,” he said.

“Today, we wanted to let you know that we’ve made the difficult decision to hold back the PvP Arena system and release it in a patch following the game’s launch. After a lot of consideration and discussion, we ultimately felt that delaying the whole game purely for PvP would just be punishing to everyone who’s waiting to enjoy the campaign and core solo/co-op content, all of which is just about complete.”

Blizzard said the PvP patch will add multiple Arena maps with themed locations and layouts, PvP-centric achievements, and a quick and easy matchmaking system. “We’ll also be adding a personal progression system that will reward you for successfully bashing in the other team’s skulls,” Wilson added.

“We know a lot of you are looking forward to PvP, and we’ll be focusing our post-launch efforts on making sure the Arenas are as brutal, bloody, fast-paced, and awesome as we know they can be. In the meantime, we’re in the process of putting the finishing touches on what we think is a truly epic campaign and co-op experience for launch.”

There’s been no official confirmation of a Diablo 3 launch date yet, although Amazon recently listed it for release on April 17.