Blizzard Aiming For Q3 Diablo 3 Beta, 2011 Release 131
During an earnings call this afternoon, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime revealed the company's goals for testing and releasing the much-anticipated new chapter in the Diablo series.
"[Morhaime said], 'On the Diablo 3 front, I'm pleased to report that we began internal, company-wide testing last week. The game is looking great and we are currently targeting a Q3 launch for external beta testing. The development team is working hard to try to launch Diablo 3 this year, but I want to be clear. We do not have an official release date or window yet.' Details on the external beta are currently extremely limited, so we don't know the scope of how many testers will be involved or what the beta will include. It's hard to imagine that anything could match the gargantuan beta for StarCraft 2, but Blizzard has said that Diablo 3 will have plenty of online functionality, and that sort of functionality needs plenty of testers to succeed."
Re:Slashvertisement (Score:4, Informative)
A click on the "Games" tab to the left there reveals launch announcements for:
Blizzard - Diablo 3 (this announcement)
Two MIT Alumi - Gitionary
id Software - Rage
Paradox - Magicka 2 (possibly)
Ubisoft - Movie Company
This is the first page of results. I think if you keep clicking, you'll find plenty more announcements for other games popular in the geek community. Blizzard doesn't appear to have any sort of monopoly on this. So either, they're ALL paying, or it's just the editors/firehose trying to pick out what's likely to be of interest.
Re:Slashvertisement (Score:4, Informative)
Diablo (1, 2, and soon 3) has enough nerds who like it or want more that it is most certainly news that matters. Hell, I didn't get into D1 or D2 and I would LOVE to get in the D3 beta. It's OK to feed us from the hype machine if it's something we're genuinely interested in.
Re:awesome! (Score:2, Informative)
What DRM have you run into with other Blizzard games? None currently have any DRM attached, unless you consider playing an online game online "DRM". >
The sole exception could be SC2 which you need a BattleNet account to activate (which, if you purchased it, is a one-off). It can then be played in offline mode. I don't really see any DRM that one could be "struggling" based on Blizzard's current behavior.
In fact, Blizzard recently went through stripping out the DRM from all their older games (Warcraft 3, Diablo 2, Starcraft) so you just run the installer and you're good to go. Only need an online account if you want to play them online.
Re:awesome! (Score:4, Informative)
Are you being serious? Okay let me list off all the things SC2 does that I find to be jerk-ish, call them DRM or Flying Monkeys With Tophats, I don't really care they're asinine:
1) Online activation for install (this one I'm cool with, especially if it means I don't need to type in a bloody CD key again... either or would be cool but whatever)
2) Periodic activation every 30 days - this one seriously ticks me off after I've already activated once then wtf?
3) Can only play offline/not logged in under guest account, prisoner on your own machine blah blah, also that play can't be translated to your battlenet account
4) must make a battlenet account to install the game, and that comes with several onerous restrictions which I won't go into here
5) no LAN - where I grew up, which is where my parents still live, which is the only place where I see all three of my brothers at the same time, there is no freaking internet. Now where I'm at the 'net is very nice, beyond nice, but I will never pay money for a game which asks me to be beholden to what the dev's thought was 'enabling piracy' when that feature is and has been part and parcel of games since I was old enough to hold a mouse, as regards LAN, I don't care if the shadow copy comes back or not, we can each buy a copy that's cool, but I want my game to just work, not install haxxorpatch.exe just to play the stupid thing, I hear DOW2:R has very nice LAN capabilities, guess which one I bought?
The reason I can live with a one-time on install online activation but not the periodic one, and not the must be logged into "really use it", and not the no LAN play is practical too: at my parents house we'd haul our machines to somewhere with a connection get the games working and installed, unplug, test, then haul them back home, ya it was a PITA but it worked. But with the periodic or always on stuff... that's no longer viable. And any dev' who thinks it's "ok because everybody has internet and if they don't they must live in the backwoods lol" will never see a red cent from my ass.
With that in mind:
The sole exception could be SC2 which you need a BattleNet account to activate (which, if you purchased it, is a one-off). It can then be played in offline mode
is either ignorant or very dishonest.