Diablo III "In the Home Stretch"

[Nocta-Aeterna]

For some reason a store near my school is already accepting preorders for the game, which seems a little too early even with this announcement.

A store in my city has been accepting pre-orders for over a year now.

OT: I think D3 is looking really impressive, aestethics choices included, but I must admit my excitement for this game has really worn away the last half year or so. It's mostly been replaced with GW2 excitement. Not that D3 is worse in any way, but Arenanet's constant handing out breadcrumbs of lore compared to D3's relative silence since the last site update in december last year just kept me a little more invested in the development process.

Please don't point out any news sources I might've missed out on...

 

[Atmos Duality]

Huh? Diablo 3 is coming out sometime?
I gave up waiting for that game a long time ago.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

2012? More like 2013, Funk.

 

[Brotherofwill]

Still think it's coming end of 2011, just like that chart said.

I doubt Blizzard has a company motto of not having internal release dates, they're just smart enough to not leak them or announce them prematurely. Can't wait to play it , even if my much beloved Diablo vibe is a little compromised. Hey, anything for smoother, faster gameplay .

 

[geizr]

Just watched the trailer for the demon hunter. I know what class I'm playing when this finally comes out!

ADDENDUM: Oh, yes! And there is also wizard! Gotta play that class, too!

 

[Lucifron]

*Please let it be a Christmas '11 release*

*Please let it be a Christmas '11 release*

*Please let it be a Christmas '11 release*

Srsly, that would be awesome.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

I'd guess that they're aiming for a holiday (December) 2011 release if possible. That thing would fly off shelves.

Would you find it funny if I said I imagined your avatar at one end of a shelf with loads of D3 boxes on it, fanboys/girls of D3 (myself chief among them) on the other and your avatar using his gun-weapon on the shelf, flinging the merchandise at the fanboys/girls with wild abandon?

 

[countrysteaksauce]

I'll just wait for the Elder Scrolls and Diablo universe crossover game to fulfill all of my RPG fantasies

 

[Reishadowen]

We're crunching. This is when the magic happens."

If by "Crunching" you mean "Rushing to get it done sometime before their fan-base are submitted to retirement homes", and by "magic" you mean "half-assing and and cutting corners", then yes, that does sound like the game developer status-quo. Otherwise, just shut up and quit getting our hopes up Blizzard. It took you thirteen years to get a sequel to Starcraft out. I think we've learned by now not to hold our breath, and that you will get your titles out when you are good and ready...Plus five more years, just for good measure.

According to the Times, one reason the game's development has taken so long (in addition to Blizzard's notorious perfectionism) is that the developers were working on a way for all Diablo players to be able to trade items with one another instead of just hopping chat channels on Battle.net hoping to find someone who wants their life-stealing polearm.

Uh...couldn't players ALREADY trade with anyone they wanted? The only real restriction was between continental servers and joining games made with different difficulty levels. Is that what they mean? Or a better way of finding people who want their particular item?

Given how central item-trading is to the core of Diablo, and how notoriously broken Diablo II's economy was, I can't blame them for wanting to overhaul the system.

*sigh* Yeah, once you got a character to "hell" difficulty, 95% of the games on the join list were trading bazaars(the other five percent were level 4 noobs wanting chaos rushes), and the only thing they traded in were the most dammed rare and hardest to find items there were, not to mention they had to be Ethereal, and have "perfect" stats. And good luck trying to get any runes above a "Shael" except through hacking.

Still, let us not forget that "in the home stretch" is as subject to Blizzard's glacial development speed as anything else: We first heard that StarCraft II was in the "final stretch" back in February 2009 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/89491-StarCraft-II-In-the-Final-Stretch]. The game actually came out in July 2010.

So we're looking at August 2012 then. Good to know.

XD

You sir, just made my day.

 

[Exort]

To be fair, Starcraft 2 was ready to be beta tested in late 2009. However the battle.net was not, that is why they delay it.

 

[John Funk]

According to the Times, one reason the game's development has taken so long (in addition to Blizzard's notorious perfectionism) is that the developers were working on a way for all Diablo players to be able to trade items with one another instead of just hopping chat channels on Battle.net hoping to find someone who wants their life-stealing polearm.

Uh...couldn't players ALREADY trade with anyone they wanted? The only real restriction was between continental servers and joining games made with different difficulty levels. Is that what they mean? Or a better way of finding people who want their particular item?

Yes, that's what they mean. So you don't need to hop in and out of channels and games to find someone who wants your particular item, they're looking at a better way of finding trade partners.

 

[The Morrigan]

Not ashamed to admit I just let out one almighty squee

As did I. Not quite optimistic enough to get all of my hope up, but boy would it be lovely!

 

[Baldr]

Something tells me we're going to see a release date at BlizzCon this year!

Blizzcon is just a little to late to have an official announcement to have it released in 2011. Basically the plan will be 2011 unless announced otherwise. At this point between August and December with about a 2 months head up for logistics and retail.

There will be some sort of announcement if there is some sort of weird delay

 

[Exort]

Blizzcon is just a little to late to have an official announcement to have it released in 2011.

Starcraft 2 don't have a release date until a month before it's release date. I'm guessing that they learned not to announce release date until they are 300% sure it will indeed be released on that date. When they announce the release date for starcraft 2 they was already shipping copy to retailers. I'm expecting same thing will happen with Diablo 3. Basically, we are waiting for the beta announcement. The lead game designer said the game will be released after 6 month of beta.

 

[Baldr]

Blizzcon is just a little to late to have an official announcement to have it released in 2011.

Starcraft 2 don't have a release date until a month before it's release date. I'm guessing that they learned not to announce release date until they are 300% sure it will indeed be released on that date. When they announce the release date for starcraft 2 they was already shipping copy to retailers. I'm expecting same thing will happen with Diablo 3. Basically, we are waiting for the beta announcement. The lead game designer said the game will be released after 6 month of beta.

Starcraft 2 was release date was announced on May 3 and released on July 27, that is almost 3 months.
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/press/pressreleases.html?100503

Blizzcon will be October 21 and 22, which is later in October than the last two years, also factoring in that it is sorta a guideline that you don't release games after December 21st, it is still pushing it.

 

[Helios_(DEL)]

Cant wait, just make it good blizzard i think we are used to waiting lol.

 

[Zenode]

Holy Balls

Games on my "to buy" list for 2011

Mass Effect 3
The Elder Scrolls V
Battlefield 3
Modern Warfare 3 (you know its coming)
L.A. Noire
Prototype 2
RAGE
Guild Wars 2
Batman: Arkham City
Diablo 3

Unless i have a LOT of loose change lieing around im gonna be one poor arse by the end of the year

 

[LastDarkness]

With such other titles in near future pipeline one questions Blizzards marketing team, and if and when they deicide its a good idea to release?

Gamers as a whole are more frugal then ever.