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Diablo III is one of the most-searched terms of the year
If games were having a popularity contest, then Diablo III just won by a landslide. Google Zeitgeist posted the most-searched-for terms of the year across the world, and Blizzard's action-RPG clicked in at number five. While it wasn't enough to topple Gangnam Style, it was by far the highest game mentioned in the overall list. Diablo III also topped the video game list in the United States, beating out other major titles like Mass Effect 3 and Halo 4. According to Google, the lists were "ranked in order of the queries with the largest volume of searches."
Blizzard running Diablo III on consoles internally
The good news is that Diablo III is now available to play on consoles. The bad news is that you'd have to apply and get accepted for a job with Blizzard to see it. The company admitted that it's continuing its experiments with a console version of Diablo III, saying that the game is running on a non-PC platform in the office. Chief Creative Officer Rob Pardo said that this doesn't signal a certainty from the company, just an indication of its interests: "We're still kind of exploring it. We've got builds up and running on it. We're hoping to get it far enough along where we can make it an official project, but we're not quite ready to release stuff about it, but it's looking pretty cool." Blizzard said that it wants to expand Diablo III, has plans for an expansion, and will be revealing "the next big thing" for the franchise during the next year.
Blizzard's response to authenticator lawsuit: 'Without merit'
A few days ago Massively reported that a class-action lawsuit had been brought by players against Blizzard Entertainment. The lawsuit claims that Blizzard's actions (and inactions) were forcing players to purchase physical authenticators for Battle.net. Today we've heard the response from the studio, which is an unsurprising dismissal of the accusations. Blizzard released a statement that began as follows: "This suit is without merit and filled with patently false information, and we will vigorously defend ourselves through the appropriate legal channels." The studio went on to address the concerns brought up by the lawsuit and defend its actions during the past summer's Battle.net security breach. Blizzard said that the onus to secure one's computer is on the operator, which is why the company "strongly encourages" the use of authenticators.
Blizzard lowers the boom on Diablo III cheaters
Blizzard's had all it can stands, and it can stands no more. The studio is taking aggressive action against botters and cheaters in Diablo III, reporting that it's gone through "several rounds of account bans" against such players. The studio also used the ban announcement as an excuse to clarify its position on hacks and third-party software. If you're curious about what steps over the line that Blizzard has in mind, wonder no longer. Beyond allowing some players to get away with an unfair advantage over others, cheat programs reportedly cause instability and performance issues with client software and Battle.net at large. "We strongly recommend that you avoid using any third-party software which interacts with Diablo III," Blizzard posted, "even if you are accessing that software from a reputable third-party site-as doing so can result in permanent ban from the game."
Blizzard's successful third quarter powered by Diablo III, new expansion mentioned
Acti-Blizz announced its financials for Q3 2012 and the company is sitting pretty. The $841 million in net revenue surpasses projections and its Q3 2011 counterpart. Activision also reported that it is debt-free and boasts $3.4 billion in cash and investments on hand as of September 30th. Blizzard's Diablo III and its Mists of Pandaria expansion for World of Warcraft are the major revenue drivers, with the former selling over 10 million copies and claiming the mantle of best-selling game in both North America and Europe. Blizzard president Mike Morhaime, speaking on the firm's latest earnings call, said that there is "an expansion planned for Diablo." He didn't elaborate, though, citing the "quality of the expansion and the gameplay" as major factors in determining any sort of development or release schedule.
Blizzard shows parental controls for World of Warcraft, Diablo III, and StarCraft II
MMOs and other online games have such a wide appeal that they attract players of all ages. Some MMOs simply add a minimum age requirement to the signup process and advise parents not to let their children play, but others implement strict parental controls. Blizzard recently released a new video explaining the parental controls that parents can use to monitor and control their childrens' play time in World of Warcraft, Diablo III and StarCraft II. Parents can use the system to limit the total number of hours an account can play each day or week or even schedule specific play times on a calendar. The controls can also limit the use of RealID and voice chat and even mute all of the game's chat channels if necessary. Parents can also disable Diablo III's real money auction house and use of the Blizzard forums. WoW Insider suggests that parental controls may actually be equally useful to students who need to limit their play time or any player who might want a weekly report of his activity. Read on to see the full video and find out how to use parental controls on your child's Battle.net account.
One Shots: Don't go chasing waterfalls
The wisdom of TLC flows down through the ages in many forms, but perhaps the group's greatest lesson was this: Don't go chasing waterfalls; please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to. In other words, if you go exploring in MMOs, you're only inviting destruction to rain down on your head, so just stay home. Wait a minute, that's not a good lesson at all. Forget it. Right now. Welcome back to One Shots, the column that you brought back and is now extremely lonely because only faithful reader Eric sent us in something from this past week! Admire Eric's pursuit of Guild Wars 2 waterfalls after the break, and be more like Eric by sending us in your favorite MMO screenshots with descriptions.
GDC Online 2012: SWTOR, Diablo III, Koster honored in GDC Online awards
Wednesday night saw the Game Developers Choice Online awards being handed out to MMO, social, mobile, and free-to-play games. Star Wars: The Old Republic came away with the awards for best online game design, best online visual arts, best online technology, and best new online game. Riot Games won for best live game, the audience award, and best community relations for League of Legends. Raph Koster was officially recognized with an online game legend award, and World of Warcraft received a hall of fame award. Blizzard also scored with Diablo III, receiving an award for having the best audio for an online game. The award for best social network game went to Draw Something, and thatgamecompany won an online innovation award for Journey. Massively sent two plucky game journalists -- Beau Hindman and Karen Bryan -- to Austin, Texas, for this year's GDC Online, where they'll be reporting back on MMO trends, community theory, old favorites, and new classics. Stay tuned for even more highlights from the show!
The Soapbox: Diablo III's endgame is fundamentally flawed
Diablo III was arguably the biggest online game release of the year, but its predecessor's decade of consistent popularity left some pretty big shoes to fill. Despite being the most pre-ordered PC game in history and selling more than 6.3 million units in its first week, Diablo III has started to seriously wane in popularity. I've seen over a dozen friends stop playing completely in the last few months, and Xfire's usage stats for D3 have dropped by around 90% since June. Guild Wars 2's timely release accounts for some of the drop, but there's a lot more going on than just competition. The Diablo III beta showed only the first few levels and part of the game's highly polished first act, and soon after release it became obvious that parts of the game weren't exactly finished. PvP was cut from release, the Auction House was a mess, and Inferno difficulty was a poor excuse for an endgame. Poor itemisation made the carrot on the end of the stick taste sour, and the runaway inflation on top-end items is crying out for some kind of ladder reset mechanic. But there is hope for improvement, with new legendary items, the Paragon level system, and the upcoming Uber boss mechanic taking a few steps in the right direction. In this opinion piece, I look at some of the fundamental flaws in Diablo III's endgame and suggest a few improvements that would make a world of difference.
Don't forget to change your Blizzard Authenticator with your new iPhone
Apple has made switching over your iPhone when you buy a new one very easy, but there's one other task you may need to undertake, especially if you're one of the many players of the popular World of Warcraft game out there (or Diablo III, or Starcraft II, or other Blizzard games): You'll need to switch your Blizzard mobile authenticator app over to your new device. Blizzard posted a reminder to do this over the weekend and their online guide to removing authenticators should help anyone who needs to transfer over with the process. I just did it myself: You'll have to remove the authenticator from your previous phone device from your Blizzard account (by first confirming a few codes from it), and then add the new one (by entering the serial number and authentication code) once you've installed the app on your new device. It's not hard at all. It is a little annoying that you should have to go to such lengths to protect your gaming account, but with hundreds of hours of gameplay and memories stored up in these games, it's a process you might as well undertake. If you grabbed a new phone this weekend and play WoW yourself, make sure to switch things over before you get rid of your old phone.
Blizzard's 'appear offline' functionality coming soon
Have you ever wanted to wander Azeroth in virtual seclusion, flying completely under the radar of folks who may have you on their friends list? If so, Blizzard's new "appear offline" functionality will likely put a smile on your face. "All of your Real ID friends, BattleTag friends, and character-level friends will see you as offline in their friends list whenever you're logged into the game," Blizzard says on its Battle.net website. This is assuming you don't set your social status option to available, busy, or away, of course. The new functionality is slated for World of Warcraft as well as StarCraft II and Diablo III. WoW's version of the feature should surface sometime after Mists of Pandaria.
Building a Diablo III Wizard to solo Inferno difficulty
With patch 1.04's new paragon level system, there's been a definite increase in the number of people getting back to playing Diablo III. Every class was buffed in the patch, and only a small handful of skills and items were nerfed, leaving everyone to pore over the skill windows and come up with new builds. Barbarians definitely made it out of the patch in the best shape, with huge buffs to Bash and Rend, buffs to two-handed weapons, and a whole host of new legendary weapons to aim for. Wizards, on the other hand, weren't so lucky. For all the buffs described in the 1.04 wizard preview devblog, not much has really changed. The Energy Twister nerf backfired hilariously, and all of the underpowered spells and runes that were buffed are still pretty useless. Energy Armor is still a mandatory skill, most Wizards are still running Critical Mass builds, and the new legendaries aimed at Wizards don't seem to make any sense from an itemisation standpoint. So how should you build a solo Wizard in 1.04? In this guide, I detail three highly effective Wizard builds and give tips on gearing for each of them following patch 1.04.
Diablo III tries a new approach to crowd control
If you've been playing Diablo III and thought that its crowd control mechanics felt, well, weak, then Blizzard agrees with you. In a new post on the official site, Senior Technical Game Designer Wyatt Cheng explains the original reasoning behind Diablo III's crowd control, brainstorming sessions that the devs had to fix it, and the team's final decision. Coming soon to the game will be a buff for CC that creates new rules for how mobs process these abilities when used against them. Cheng explains it thusly: "Monsters have a 'CC resistance' that is stored on a per-monster basis. The CC resistance starts at 0%. For every one second CC that is applied to the monster, the monster receives 10% CC resistance. Monsters lose 10% of their CC resistance every second that they are not CC'd. Elite monster CC resistance is capped at the current reduction values already active for Elites." He says that after the change, "near-infinite CC strategies will work," making the player feel powerful while not unbalancing the game.
The Daily Grind: What's the best way to deliver MMO lore?
The MMO genre is increasingly dominated by AAA titles like The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, and Star Wars: The Old Republic, all of which tuck story and lore into special cutscenes bookending regular combat, but that's not the only way to drop backstory into a game. In fact, Diablo III's lore-delivery system might just top them all. Did I just use Diablo III and lore in the same sentence? I did! Diablo III reveals its backstory to the player through a series of voiceovers that play as you play rather than take you out of the fight. Little audio pop-ups narrate the significance of characters and places so you understand what's going on. It's not that the game never employs cutscenes; it just restricts cutscenes to Very Important Events. Granted, this type of system might not work so well in a full-fledged massively multiplayer game, so today we're asking what you think: How do you want lore delivered in your MMOs? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Diablo III adding 100 levels via new Paragon system
How do 100 more levels of Diablo III grab you? Blizzard has just announced a new Paragon system for its fantasy dungeon-crawler, one that gives high-level players a reason to keep grinding. Once you reach level 60, additional experience will go toward your Paragon level. Each level boosts core stats, and a new dev diary says that "the time to reach the upper Paragon levels approximates the long-term time investment required to get a level 99 character in Diablo II." Blizzard's Jay Wilson also elaborates on how Paragon levels will impact D3's Magic Find system. The devs are capping Magic (and Gold) Find at 300%. The aim is to "slowly and gently move Magic Find off of items in the future," Wilson explains.
Diablo III reveals patch 1.0.4 class updates [Updated]
As the dust settled following Diablo III's tumultuous launch, players quickly figured out the most effective skills and items to use for each class. In the game's upcoming patch 1.0.4, underused skills and legendary items are receiving some big buffs, and several overpowered skills are due for a nerf. This week Blizzard revealed details of the legendary item revamp and some big balance updates for the Wizard, Monk, and Barbarian classes. The popular Wizard Critical Mass build is due for a nerf, with Energy Twister's spell coefficient being cut in half. Venom Hydra has emerged as the most powerful variant, but rather than nerfing it, Blizzard will be buffing the alternative versions. Barbarians will be seeing a buff to fury-generating abilities Bash and Cleave and huge increases in the damage output of fury spenders. Finally, Monks will enjoy a huge damage boost to Wave of Light and Seven-Sided Strike, and all players will see improvements to make two-handed weapons more competitive. [Update: The Demon Hunter preview has also just gone live.]
Play Diablo III for free up to level 13
The last time we wrote about Diablo III's starter edition, the circumstances were pretty painful and we were pretty ornery. Its original release was glitchy, and for a time, digital purchasers of D3 were limited to the starter edition despite paying full price for the game. Now, though, Blizzard has righted the ship and released a proper D3 trial to the masses, exclusively via Battle.net. Tire-kickers can advance to level 13 and confront the game's first boss, the Skeleton King. Try it out for yourself via the game's official website.
Play together, loot alone in Diablo III's 1.0.4 patch
What would it take to get you to give Diablo III another go? A whopping patch, perhaps? Blizzard is banking on it. In the game's upcoming 1.0.4 update, the team aims to revamp more than a few major systems, so Senior Technical Game Designer Wyatt Cheng took to the official blog to lay out the plan. For starters, Blizz wants to boost the number of folks playing co-op. That means nuking magic-find averaging in co-op matches; in 1.0.4, you'll benefit from your individual looting bonuses, and monster health will be shaved incrementally as more players join a game. The patch also nerfs elite monster pack difficulty, makes regular mobs tougher but buffs their drops, fixes terrible weapon drops (especially weak two-handers), adjusts damage-over-time skills, and reduces repair costs by 25%, the last of which ought to make endgamers happy. The devs are likewise "making a metric-ton of changes to classes," so expect more Battle.net blog posts in the near future.
Blizzard internal network hacked, some Battle.net account details compromised
Blizzard Entertainment has just posted an "important security update" to its official site. The studio responsible for World of Warcraft, Diablo III, and StarCraft revealed that its security team "found an unauthorized and illegal access" into Blizzard's internal network. While Blizzard president Mike Morhaime explains that no financial data (like credit card details, real names, and billing addresses) were compromised as a result of the security breach, he does admit that emails, answers to security questions, and encrypted Battle.net passwords of North American players (and others outside of China) were accessed. "Based on what we currently know, this information alone is NOT enough for anyone to gain access to Battle.net accounts," wrote Morhaime, but the company is still investigating the breach and recommends that all players change their passwords "as a precaution."
Player banks $10,000 with Diablo III
A gamer who says he's been interested in item markets and economics since he started trading in Neopets is seeing that interest pay off in Diablo III. Redditor WishboneTheDog posted some screenshots lending proof to his impressive claim of making $10,000 with Diablo III's real money auction house. Then he invited other players to ask him (almost) anything. He said he'd never botted, scammed, or otherwise cheated at all in his efforts because trading in item markets is part of how he has fun, so it "wouldn't make sense" to cheat. He wrote, Gold is like a foreign currency. It represents value, but only within the specific game world. You can't use gold to buy things in stores in the US, just like you can't use Yen to buy things in those stores. If, however, you can convert that currency to a usable one, it has an "exchange rate." Gold has an exchange rate exactly like a foreign currency has. (Except gold is more easily exchanged than 90% of the currencies in the world.)
