Blizzard Announces Diablo 3

stpk4 writes "After a week-long tease by Blizzard, Diablo 3 has just been announced in Paris. The splash screen has been updated at their homepage and The Escapist has the first write-up." While there aren't many details available yet, it is known that Deckard Cain returns to help our heroes yet again.

Assuming you're not joking

[ctid]

Grab the skull on the right-hand side and use it as a slider. That's how it works here on Safari.

Re:But

[Anonymous Coward]

If I remember correctly, the destruction of the worldstone keep at the end of the expansion left the world open to chaos in some way that could go towards explaining it all.

Re:There goes my productivity again

[oDDmON oUT]

Doesn't the Blizzard native OS X installer [blizzard.com], also discussed here [slashdot.org], work on MacIntels?

I've been considering using Diablo II to wean myself from a year long umbilical WoW connection and hadn't had a chance to try it yet.

Re:website/browser problem

[ConanG]

Youtube video of opening trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGNLFnADJ_0 [youtube.com]

Gameplay video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPxRoG4g6mw [youtube.com]
and here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnmD0aqDqTM [youtube.com]

Not as high quality as on the official site, but you take what you can get, eh?

Re:What are we killing now?

[ConanG]

He wasn't killed in D1. The soulstone trapped his essence. Then your idiot hero sticks it in his head and becomes Diablo (aka "The Wanderer") in D2.

Don't know what happens in D3 obviously, but the soulstones are destroyed. My guess is something to do with Tyriel in Heaven. Maybe a war in Heaven leading to a new "Diablo"?

Re:Other forms of payment

[MooseMuffin]

I run WoW under wine on ubuntu. Works perfectly, and even plays nice with the compiz fusion desktop effects. I can run WoW on one desktop, and then spin the cube to another to answer IMs or whatever.

Re:System Requirements?

[mattgoldey]

On the FAQ page, they say that the system requirements will announced later.

Re:website/browser problem

[Aaron England]

Not as high quality as on the official site, but you take what you can get, eh?

Under the youtube video there's a "watch in high quality" link which will play it in similar quality to the official site.

Re:Rating Pending

[Machtyn]

The teaser didn't have much in it, but the gameplay video has some pretty sick and gruesome stuff happening in it. (Particularly at the end when they show you half of a big boss battle and the big boss picks up the barbarian and ... happens.)

Re:Rating Pending

[rpillala]

That is true, and it could just be that I clicked on the teaser first and that's when I got the age prompt. There is a ton of blood flying around in the gameplay demo.

Re:website/browser problem

[hampton]

If you add "&fmt=18" to the query string of a YouTube video, it'll play the high quality version (if there is one).

Boss Fight Video from Gametrailers.com

[Asomatous]

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/234936.html?playlist=featured [gametrailers.com]

Re:What are we killing now?

[Kingrames]

In case you didn't read the instruction manual that came with the first game, the only way to contain the flawed soulstone of mephisto was to implant it into the skull of the person most resistant to the lure of evil and to lock him away.

The hero of the first game was clearly aware of this and made the ultimate sacrifice, mind, body, and soul, to contain Diablo long enough for someone else to find a way to destroy him and his brothers and the soulstones.

Dammit, man, now you've got me geeking out.

People, Flagship is NOT Blizzard North

[Samuel_Gompers]

Less than 1/4 of the Blizzard North people with credits on "Diablo II" went to Flagship. Also, only TWO people from Blizzard North with a credit on Diablo II are working in Irvine as of the past year! Just a few of the names who did NOT go to Flagship AND are not currently working in Irvine: http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/diablo-ii/credits [mobygames.com] http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/hellgate-london/credits [mobygames.com] - Both people named as designers (Hedlund and Sexton) - The artist who created "Diablo" (Okamura) - The original animator of "Diablo" (Haas) - The lead programmer (Seis) - The entire in-game music/audio team (Stone, Petersen, Uelman) - The character artists behind the Paladin, Sorceress, and Barbarian and countless monsters (Johnson, Dashow) - The illustration genius behind the UI art (Boos) - All three level designers (McAuley, Scandizzo, Wilson) Additionally, Bill Roper never had an office at Blizzard North during the making of any of those releases - he moved soon AFTER they were released. The idea that "Well, Hellgate was a flop, so it must have been Blizzard all along that made it..." is unfounded and stupid. The sad reality is that Blizzard North was basically cast to the wind and can never be reformed in any real way.

Re:Other forms of payment

[Logiksan]

This is a very valid point. 'Linux' is little more than a kernel. There's a half dozen or so interfaces built on top of that, with a few different types of environments available. It's not a lack of demand that's keeping commercial games from being released on Linux OSes, it's the fact that it has to conform to a number of different platforms within the Linux umbrella. With the rising costs of game development, nobody wants to bother going through the trouble.